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La per>%f»nne no!ntn(''e ei-dcssous est aiito- 
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rdquisition 

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rait dfHivrc;^ ijue pour fjejy ri« tenqts, ie nuif ■ 
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un laisser-i.iasser ivuait a elre trouve, le fail 
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PHOTOGRAPH AND DESCRIPTION OF THE 
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OF THIS LICENCE 




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AMERICAN EXPEMflONARY FORCES 
ARMlfiE ^6R5CAINE 

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J 



"AND THEY THOUGHT WE WOULD N'T FIGHT" 

FLOYD GIBBONS 



1 




FLOYD GIBBONS 



"AND THEY THOUGHT 
WE WOULD NT FIGHT 



FLOYD GIBBONS 

OFFICIAL COHRESPONDENT OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 
ACCREDITED TO THE AMERICAN EXPE- 
DITIONARY FORCES 




NEW ^VS^ YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



J57d 



Copyright, 1918, 
By Oeorge H. Doran Company 






Printed in the United States of America 






r 



r 



TO 

GENERAL JOHN J. PERSHING 

AND 

THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES 

I RESPECTFULLY DEDICATE THIS INADEQUATE RECORD 

IN REVERENT MEMORY OF 

OUR SACRED DEAD 

ON FIELDS IN FRANCE 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The author expresses his hearty thanks 
to The Chicago Tribune for the opportu- ' 
nity he enjoyed as a correspondent of 
that paper, in the service of which he se- 
cured the material for these papers. 



VI 



Personal* 

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY PORCES 
OrFICE or THE COMMANOEBIN-CHier 

France, August 17, 1918* 



Mr* Floyd GlTDbons, 

Care Chicago Tribune, 
480 Hue Saint-Honore, 
Paris. 

Dear Mr. Gibbons: 

At this time, when you are returning 
to America, I wish to express to you my- 
appreciation of the cordial cooperation 
and assistance you have always given us 
in your important work as correspondent 
of the Chicago Tribune in Prance. I 
also wish to congratulate you on the honor 
which the French government has done you 
in giving you .the Croix de Guerre, which 
is but a just rev/ard for the consistent 
devotion to your duty and personal bravery 
that you have exhibited. 

My personal regrets that you are 
leaving us at this time are lessened by 
the iaiowledge of the great opportunity 
you will have of giving to our people in 
America a true picture of the work of the 
American soldier in France and of impress- 
ing on them the necessity of carrying on 
this wori to the end, which can be accom- 
plished only by victory for the Allied 
arms. You have a great opportunity, and 

I am confident that you will grasp it. 
as you have grasped your past oppor- 
tunities, with success. You have al- 
ways played the game squarely and with 
courage, and I wish to thank you. 



Sincerely yours, 




G. Q. G. A. le July 28, 1918. 

COMMANDEMENT EN ChEF 

DES Armees Allies 



Le Of n£ral 



Monsieur, 

I understand that you are going to the United S ates 
to give lectures on what you have seen on the French front. 

No one is more qualified than you to do this, after your 
brilliant conduct in the Bois de Belleau. 

The American Army has proved itself to be magnificent 
in spirit, in gallantry and in vigor; it has contributed largely 
to our successes. If you can thus be the echo of my opinion 
I am sure you will serve a good purpose. 
Very sincerely yours, 

{Signed) F. Foch. 

Monsieur Floyd Gibbons, 

War Correspondent of the Chicago Tribune. 



viu 



'^--.W,^^ ^ <?.4^ ° ■= •= -" ^-»^m.» i«. 



£r <§-v*uxi' 



Je eaie que toub allaz donner des oonfdrenoea aux 
Btats-UnlB pour raoonter oe que vous avez m aur le front 
fran^als. 

Personna n'eat plus qualifld quo voue pour le faire, 
apr^s votre 'brillante condulte au BoIb BBLLSA.U. 

L'Arm^e Am^ricaine ae montre magnlfique de sentlmenta, 
de valeor et d' entrain, elle a contribu6 pour une large part 
h noe succ^s. Si vous pouvez etre I'^oho de mon opinion, Je 
n'y verral qu'avantage. 

Croyea, Uonsieur. k oee meilleura eentlmente. 



^I 




Monsieur FLOYD GIBBOUS 
Oorreepondant de Guerre da CHICAGO TRIBUlTfi. 



GRAND QUARTIER cf Nf RAL 
DES ARMIES DU NORD ET DU NORD EST 

ETAT-MAJOR 

BUREAU DU PERSONNEL 

(Decorations) 

Order No. 8809 D 

The General Commander-in-Chief Cites for the Croix 
de Guerre 

M. Floyd Gibbons, War Correspondent of the Chicago 
Tribune: 

"Has time after time given proof of his courage and 
bravery by going to the most exposed posts to gather 
information. On June 5, 191 8, while accompanying a regi- 
ment of marines who were attacking a wood, he was se- 
verely woimded by three machine gun bullets in going to 
the rescue of an American officer wounded near him — 
demonstrating, by this action, the most noble devotion. 
When, a few hours later, he was lifted and transported to 
the dressing station, he begged not to be cared for until the 
wounded who had arrived before him had been attended 
to." 

General Headquarters, August 2, 191 8 
The General Commander-in-Chief 

{Signed) Petain 



CRAMD QUARTIER CEHERAl 
AHMEES DU NORD ET DU HORD^EST 
•9-:-0-;-o-:-o-:-o-:-o-:-o-;- 
BTAT - MAJOR 

♦♦♦+ 

BUREAU DU PERS0NK2L, 

(D6oorations) 
— — ooo00§00ooo- — 

OBSRB W 6809 

-:-o-:-o-:-o-:-o- 

Le G^n^rekl Commandant en Chef Cite h. l*Ordra de I'Ancde t 

M. FLOYS QIBB03B , Correepondant do Guarre du Chioago Tribune: 

"A domi6 k naintee reprises dee preuvee de courage et de bra- 
voure, en allant recuelllir des informations auz postea les plus ex- 
poses. Le 5 Juln 1918, accompagnant vn rsgiment de Fusiliers aarins 
qui attaquait un bole, a 6t6 tr^s grifevemant attaint de trois ballaa 
de mltrallleuBos en se portant au secoura d'nn officier aai6ricaln 
bleaa^ h. ses cotds, faisant ainsi prauve, en cetto circonstance. du 
plus beau d^vouemont. Belov6 plueleure heuxes aprfes et transport* au 
poste de seoours, a deuande k ne pas etre solgnd avant les blesses 
arrives avant lui." 

Au Grand Qnaxtier Gdn4ral. le 2 Aout 1918. 
LB OSITEIRAL COUMAKDANT EN CBEF. 




FOREWORD 

Marshal Foch, the commander of eleven million bayo- 
nets, has written that no man is more qualified than Gib- 
bons to tell the true story of the Western Front. General 
Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expe- 
ditionary Forces, has said that it was Gibbons' great 
opportunity to give the people in America a life-like 
picture of the work of the American soldier in France. 

The key to the book is the man. 

Back in the red days on the Rio Grande, word came 
from Pancho Villa that any "Gringos" found in Mexico 
would be killed on sight. The American people were in- 
terested in the Revolution at the border. Gibbons went 
into the Mexican hills alone and called Villa's bluff. 
He did more. He fitted out a box car, attached it to the 
revolutionary bandits' train and was in the thick of three 
of Villa's biggest battles. Gibbons brought out of Mex- 
ico the first authoritative information on the Mexican 
situation. The following year the War Department ac- 
credited him to General Pershing's punitive expedition 
and he rode with the flying column led by General Persh- 
ing when it crossed the border. 

In 191 7, the then Imperial German Government an- 
nounced to the world that on and after February ist its 
submarines would sink without warning any ship that 
ventured to enter a zone it had drawn in the waters of 
the North Atlantic. 

Gibbons sensed the meaning of this impudent chal- 



xiv FOREWORD 

lenge. He saw ahead the overt act that was bound to 
come and be the cause of the United States entering the 
war. In these days the cry of "Preparedness" was echo- 
ing in the land. England had paid dearly for her lack of 
preparedness. The inefficient volunteer system had cost 
her priceless blood. The Chicago Tribune sought the 
most available newspaper man to send to London and 
write tlie story of England's costly mistakes for the 
profit of the American people. Gibbons was picked for 
the mission and arrangement was made for him to travel! 
on the steamer by which the discredited Von Bernstorff 
was to return to Germany. The ^V safe conduct 
was guaranteed. Gibbons did v^ < *s feature of 
the trip. He wanted to ride tl Mp without 

guarantees. His mind was on th«. 'e wanted 

to be on the job when it happent 'led the 

passage provided for him on the \ * ship 

and took passage on the largest liner in rge 

enough to be readily seen through a subi >e 

ana important enough to attract the specie 
the German Admiralty. He sailed on the 
eighteen thousand ton Cunarder. 

On the night of February 27, 191 7, when the 
was two hundred miles off the coast of Ireland, ti. 
bons' *'hunch" was fulfilled. The Laconia was tv 
doed and sunk. After a perilous night in a small b 
on the open sea, Gibbons was rescued and brought intv 
Queenstown. He opened the cables and flashed to Amer- 
ica the most powerful call to arms to the American 
people. It shook the country. It was the testimony of an 
eye witness and it convinced the Imperial German Gov- 
ernment, beyond all reasonable doubt, of the wilful and 
malicious murder of American citizens. The Gibbons 
story furnished the proof of the overt act and it was 



FOREWORD XV 

unofficially admitted at Washington that it was the de- 
termining factor in sending America into the war one 
month later. 

Gibbons greeted Pershing on the latter*s landing in 
Liverpool. He accompanied the commander of the 
American Expeditionary Forces across the Channel and 
was at his side when he put foot on French soil. He was 
one of the two American correspondents to march with 
the first American troops that entered the trenches on 
the Western front. He was with the first American 
troops to cross the German frontier. He was with the 
artillery battalion that fired the first American shell 
into Germany. 

On June 6th, .918, Gibbons went "over the top" with 
the first wa- ,:s in iiu^ great battle of the Bois de Belleau. 
Gibbons vms with M . ^r John Berry, who, while leading 

the cha' ' '' j. Gibbons saw him fall. Through 

the ^ i a thousand spitting machine guns, 

he rushed t(» uie assistance of the wounded Major. A 

^ -^mi ma* ^ e gun bullet shot away part of his left 

'•^r bin chis did not stop Gibbons. Another bullet 

rough his arm, but still Gibbons kept on. A 

-. itt got him. It tore out his left eye and made a^ 

^*- :.rand fracture of the skull. For three hours he lay 
.cious on the open field in the Bois de Belleau with a 
.arderous machine gun fire playing a few inches over his 
head until under cover of darkness he was able to crawl 
off the field. For his gallant conduct he received a cita- 
tation from General Petain, Commander-in-Chief of the 
French Armies, and the French Government awarded him 
the Croix de Guerre with the Palm. 

On July 5th, he was out of the hospital and back at 
the front, covering the first advance of the Americans 
with the British forces before Amiens. On July i8th he 



xvi FOREWORD 

was the only correspondent with the American troops 
when they executed the history-making drive against the 
German armies in the Chateau-Thierry salient — the be- 
ginning of the German end. He rode with the first de- 
tachment of American troops that entered Chateau- 
Thierry upon the heels of the retreating Germans. 

Floyd Gibbons was the first to sound the alarm of the 
danger of the German peace offensive. Six weeks before 
the drive for a negotiated peace was made by the German 
Government against the home flank in America, Gibbons 
told that it was on the way. He crossed the Atlantic 
with his crippled arm in a sling and his head bandaged, 
to spend his convalescence warning American audiences 
against what he called the "Crooked Kamerad Cry." 

Gibbons has lived the war, he has been a part of it. 
"And They Thought We Wouldn't Fight" is the voice 
of our men in France. 

Frank Comfrford. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I THE SINKING OF THE Lo ^ ^ I7 

II PERSHING'S ARRIVAL ' .... 43 

III THE LANDING OF .RICAN CON- 

TINGENT IN FP .... '61 

IV THROUGH THE 78 

V MAKING THF V7K0 MA> THE GUNS ... 96 

VI "frontw^^; Hu; 117 

VII INTO T^ '.■:'-■ -'! IRST AMERICAN SHOT IN 

TIT 134 

VIII TH' .N SECTOR 158 

IK. "! ai. JUNS CUT LOOSE .... 182 

y V7T' TO MEET THE GERMAN PUSH . . I99 

, 217 

JANTIGNY 235 

. '.'■'■ JSH OF THE RAIDERS — "ZERO AT 2 A. M." 251 

>' '\ I.EAVE IN PARIS 266 

> HATEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLE AU 283 

WOUNDED — HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT . . . 305 

X"VXI " GOOD MORNING, NURSE " 323 

XVIII GROANS, LAUGHS AND SOBS IN THE HOSPITAL 328 

XIX "JULY I 8th" — THE TURN OF THE TIDE . . . 354 

XX THE DAWN OF VICTORY 376 

APPENDIX 

PERSONNEL OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY 

FORCES IN FRANCE 399 

zvii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FLOYD GIBBONS Frontispiece 

PAGE 
THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON, SHOWING GENERAL PERSHING, 
MR. PAGE, FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH, LORD 
DERBY, AND ADMIRAL SIMS 50 

GENERAL PERSHING BOWING TO THE CROWD IN PARIS . 50 

THE FIRST AMERICAN FOOT ON FRENCH SOIL .... 66 

THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE 66 

CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING 

AMERICAN OFFICERS IN THE USE OF THE ONE POUNDER 122 

IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE 
VESLE THIS 15s MM. GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND 
WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO RESPECT AMERICA. 
THE TRACTOR HAULS IT ALONG STEADILY AND SLOWLY, 
LIKE A STEAM ROLLER 122 

GRAVE OF FIRST AMERICANS KILLED IN FRANCE. TRANS- 
LATION! HERE LIE THE FIRST SOLDIERS OF THE GREAT 
REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, FALLEN 
ON FRENCH SOIL FOR JUSTICE AND FOR LIBERTY, NO- 
VEMBER 3RD, I918 170 

FIRST OF THE GREAT FRANCO-AMERICAN COUNTER-OF- 
FENSIVE AT CHATEAU-THIERRY. THE FRENCH BABY 
TANKS, KNOWN AS CHARS d'aSSAUTS, ENTERING THE 
WOOD OF VILLERS-COTTERET, SOUTHWEST OF SOISSONS 226 

YANKS AND POILUS VIEWING THE CITY OF CHATEAU- 
THIERRY WHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY THE YANKS 
TURNED THE TIDE OF BATTLE AGAINST THE HUNS . . 226 



XX ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 
MARINES MARCHING DOWN THE AVENUE PRESIDENT WIL- 
SON ON THE FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS . . . . 274 

BRIDGE CROSSING MARNE RIVER IN CHAtEAU-THIERRY 
DESTROYED BY GERMANS IN THEIR RETREAT FROM 
TOWN 274 

HELMET WORN BY FLOYD GIBBONS WHEN WOUNDED, 

SHOWING DAMAGE CAUSED BY SHRAPNEL . . . 314 

THE NEWS FROM THE STATES 346 

SMILING WOUNDED AMERICAN SOLDIERS 346 



(^Photographs Copyright by Committee on Public Information.) 



"AND THEY THOUGHT WE 
WOULDN'T FIGHT" 



CHAPTER I 

THE SINKING OF THE Loconia 

Between America and the firing line, there are three 
thousand piiles of submarine infested water. Every Amer- 
ican soldier, before encountering the dangers of the bat- 
tle-front, must first overcome the dangers of the deep. 

Geographically, America is almost four thousand miles 
from the war zone, but in fact every American soldier 
bound for France entered the war zone one hour out of 
New York harbour. Germany made an Ally out of the 
dark depths of the Atlantic. 

That three-thousand-mile passage represented greater 
possibilities for the destruction of the United States over- 
seas forces than any strategical operation that Germany's 
able military leaders could direct in the field. 

Germany made use of that three thousand miles of 
water, just as ^he developed the use of barbed wire en- 
tanglements along the front. Infantry advancing across 
No Man's Land were held helpless before the enemy's 
fire by barbed wire entanglements. Germany, with her 
submarine policy of ruthlessness, changed the Atlantic 
Ocean into another No Man's Land across which every 
American soldier had to pass at the mercy of the enemy 
before he could arrive at the actual battle- front. 

This was the peril of the troop ship. This was the 
tremendous advantage which the enemy held over our 
armies even before they reached the field. This was the 
unprecedented condition which the United States and 

17 



i8 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

Allied navies had to cope with in the great undertaking 
of transporting our forces overseas. 

Any one who has crossed the ocean, even in the normal 
times before shark-like Kultur skulked beneath the water, 
has experienced the feeling of human helplessness that 
comes in mid-ocean when one considers the compara- 
tive frailty of such man-made devices as even the most 
modern turbine liners, with the enormous power of the 
wilderness of water over which one sails. 

In such times one realises that safety rests, first upon 
the kindliness of the elements; secondly, upon the skill 
and watchfulness of those directing the voyage, and 
thirdly, upon the dependability of such human-made 
things as engines, propellers, steel plates, bolts and rivets. 

But add to the possibilities of a failure or a misalli- 
ance of any or all of the above functions, the greater 
danger of a diabolical human, yet inhuman, interference, 
directed against the seafarer with the purpose and inten- 
tion of his destruction. This last represents the greatest 
odds against those who go to sea during the years of the 
great war. 

A sinking at sea is a nightmare. I have been through 
one. I have been on a ship torpedoed in mid-ocean. I 
have stood on the slanting decks of a doomed liner; I 
have listened to the lowering of the life-boats, heard the 
hiss of escaping steam and the roar of ascending rockets 
as they tore lurid rents in the black sky and cast their 
red glare o*er the roaring sea. 

I have spent a night in an open boat on the tossing 
swells. I have been through, in reality, the mad dream 
of drifting and darkness and bailing and pulling on the 
oars and straining aching eyes toward an empty, mean- 
ingless horizon in search of help. I shall try to tell you 
how it feels. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 19 

I had been assigned by The Chicago Tribune to go to 
London as their correspondent. Almost the same day I 
received that assignment, the "Imperial" Government of 
Germany had invoked its ruthless submarine policy, had 
drawn a blockade zone about the waters of the British 
Isles and the coasts of France, and had announced to ? f 

the world that its U-boats would sink without warning 
any ship, of any kind, under any flag, that tried to sail 
the waters that Germany declared prohibitory. 

In consideration of my personal safety and, possibly, 
of my future usefulness, the Tribune was desirous of 
arranging for me a safe passage across the Atlantic. 
Such an opportunity presented itself in the ordered re- 
turn of the disgraced and discredited German Ambassa- 
dor to the United States, Count von Bernstorff. 

Under the rules of International courtesy, a ship had 
been provided for the use of von Bernstorff and his dip- 
lomatic staff. That ship was to sail under absolute guar- 
antees of safe conduct from all of the nations at war with 
Germany and, of course, it would also have been safe 
from attack by German submarines. That ship was the 
Frederick VIII. At considerable expense the Tribune 
managed to obtain for me a cabin passage on that ship. 

I can't say that I was over-impressed with the pros- 
pect of travel in such company. I disliked the thought 
that I, an American citizen, with rights as such to sail 
the sea, should have to resort to subterfuge and scheming 
to enjoy those rights. There arose in me a feeling of 
challenge against Germany's order which forbade Amer- 
ican ships to sail the ocean. I cancelled my sailing on 
the Frederick VIII. 

In New York, I sought passage on the first American 
ship sailing for England. I made the rounds of the 
steamship offices and learned that the Cunard liner La- 



20 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

conia was the first available boat and was about to sail. 
Siie carried a large cargo of munitions and other ma- 
terials of war. I booked passage aboard her. It was 
on Saturday, February 17th, 19 17, that we steamed away 
from the dock at New York and moved slowly down the 
East River. We were bound for Liverpool, England. 
My cabin accommodations were good. The Laconia was 
listed at 18,000 tons and was one of the largest Cunard- 
ers in the Atlantic service. The next morning we were 
out of sight of land. 

Sailors were stationed along the decks of the ship 
and in the look-outs at the mast heads. They main- 
tained a watch over the surface of the sea in all direc- 
tions. On the stem of the ship, there was mounted a 
six-inch cannon and a crew of gunners stood by it night 
and day. 

Submarines had been recently reported in the waters 
through which we were sailing, but we saw none of them 
and apparently they saw none of us. They had sunk 
many ships, but all of the sinkings had been in the day 
time. Consequently, there was a feeling of greater 
safety at night. The Laconia sailed on a constantly zig- 
zaggkig course. All of our life-boats were swinging out 
over the side of the ship, so that if we were hit they 
could be lowered in a hurry. Every other day the pas- , 
sengers and the crew would be called up on the decks 
to stand by the life-boats that had been assigned to them. 

The officers of the ship instructed us in the life-boat 
drill. They showed us how to strap the life-preservers 
about our bodies; they showed us how to seat ourselves 
in the life-boats; they showed us a small keg of water 
and some tin cans of biscuits, a lantern and some flares 
that were stored in the boat, and so we sailed along day 
after day without meeting any danger. At night, all of 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 21 

the lights were put out and the ship slipped along through 
the darkness. 

On Sunday, after we had been sailing for eight days, 
we entered the zone that had been prohibited by the 
Kaiser. We sailed into it full steam ahead and nothing 
happened. That day was February the twenty-fifth. In 
the afternoon, I was seated in the lounge with two 
friends. One was an American whose name was Kirby ; 
the other was a Canadian and his name was Dugan. The 
latter was an aviator in the British army. In fights with 
German aeroplanes high over the Western Front he had 
been wounded and brought down twice and the army 
had sent him to his home in Canada to get well. He 
was returning once more to the battle front "to stop an- 
other bullet," as he said. 

As we tallked, I passed around my cigarette case and 
Dugan held a lighted match while the three of us lighted 
our cigarettes from it. As Dugan blew out the match 
and placed the burnt end in an ash tray, he laughed and 
said, 

"They say it is bad luck to light three cigarettes with 
the same match, but I think it is good luck for me. I 
used to do it frequently with my flying partners in France 
and four of them have been killed, but I am still alive." 

"That makes it all right for you," said Kirby, "but it 
makes it look bad for Gibbons and myself. But nothing 
is going to happen. I don't believe in superstitions." 

That night after dinner Dugan and I took a brisk walk 
around the darkened promenade deck of the Laconia. 
The night was very dark, a stiff wind was blowing and 
the Laconia was rolling slightly in the trough of the 
waves. Wet from spray, we returned within and in one 
of the corridors met the Captain of the ship. I told him 



22 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

that I would like very much to have a look at his chart 
and learn our exact location on the oce^it. 

He looked at me and laughed becaus. that was a very 
secret matter. But he replied : 

"Oh, you would, would you?" and his voice carried 
that particular British intonation that seemed to say, 
"Well it is jolly well none of your business." 

Then I asked him when he thought we would land in 
Liverpool. 

"I really don't know," said the ship's commander, and 
then, with a wink, he added, "but my steward told me 
that we would get in Tuesday evening." 

Kirby and I went to the smoke room on the boat deck 
well to the stern of the ship. We joined a circle of 
Britishers who were seated in front of a coal fire in an 
open hearth. Nearly every one in the lighted smoke 
room was playing cards, so that the conversation was 
practically confined to the mentioning of bids and the or- 
ders of drinks from the stewards. 

"What do you think are our chances of being torpe- 
doed?" was the question I put before the circle in front 
of the fireplace. 

The deliberative Mr. Henry Chetham, a London so- 
licitor, was the first to answer. 

"Well," he drawled, "I should say about four thou- 
sand to one." 

Lucien J. Jerome of the British Diplomatic Service, 
returning with an Ecuadorian valet from South America, 
advanced his opinion. 

I was much impressed with his opinion because the 
speaker himself had impressed me deeply. He was the 
best monocle juggler I had ever met. In his right eye 
he carried a monocle without a rim and without a ribbon 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 23 

or thread to save it, should it ever have fallen from his 
eye. 

Repeatedly during the trip, I had seen Mr. Je- 
rome standing on the hurrideck of the Laconia fac- 
ing the wind but holding the glass disk in his eye with a 
muscular grip that must have been vise-like. I had even 
followed him around the deck several times in a desire 
to be present when the monocle blew out, but the British 
diplomatist never for once lost his grip on it. I had 
come to the opinion that the piece of glass was fixed to 
his eye and that he slept with it. After the fashion of the 
British Diplomatic Service, he expressed his opinion most 
affirmatively. 

"Nonsense," he said with reference to Mr. Chetham's 
estimate. "Utter nonsense. Considering the zone that 
we are in and the class of the ship, I should put the 
chances down at two hundred and fifty to one that we 
don't meet a 'sub.' " 

At that minute the torpedo hit us. 

Have you ever stood on the deck of a ferry boat as it 
arrived in the slip ? And have you ever experienced the 
slight sideward shove when the boat rubs against the pil- 
ing and comes to a stop? That was the unmistakable 
lurch we felt, but no one expects to run into pilings in 
mid-ocean, so every one knew what it was. 

At the same time, there came a muffled noise — not ex- 
tremely loud nor yet very sharp — just a noise like the 
slamming of some large oaken door a good distance 
away. Realising that we had been torpedoed, my imagi- 
nation was rather disappointed at the slightness of the 
shock and the meekness of the report. One or two chairs 
tipped over, a few glasses crashed from table to floor 
and in an instant every man in the room was on his feet. 

"We're hit," shouted Mr. Chetham. 



24 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"That's what weVe been waiting for," said Mr. Je- 
rome. 

"What a lousy torpedo !'* said Mr. Kirby. "It must 
have been a fizzer.'' 

I looked at my watch ; it was lO .-30. 

Fivj sharp blasts sounded on the Laconia's whistle. 
Since that night, I have often marvelled at the quick co- 
ordination of mind and hand that belonged to the man 
on the bridge who pulled that whistle rope. Those five 
blasts constituted the signal to abandon the ship. Every 
one recognised them. 

We walked hurriedly down the corridor leading from 
the smoke room in the stern to the lounge which was 
amidships. We moved fast but there was no crowding 
and no panic. Passing the open door of the g3anna- 
sium, I became aware of the list of the vessel. The floor 
of the gymnasium slanted down on the starboard side 
and a medicine ball and dozens of dumb bells and Indian 
clubs were rolling in that direction. 

We entered the lounge — a large drawing room fur- 
nished with green upholstered chairs and divans and 
small tables on which the after-dinner liqueur glasses 
still rested. In one corner was a grand piano with the 
top elevated. In the centre of the slanting floor of the 
saloon was a cabinet victrola and from its mahogany 
bowels there poured the last and dying strains of "Poor 
Butterfly." 

The women and several men who had been in the 
lounge were hurriedly leaving by the forward door as 
we entered. We followed them through. The twin 
winding stairs leading below decks by the forward hatch 
were dark and I brought into play a pocket flashlight 
shaped like a fountain pen. I had purchased it before 



WE WOULDN T FIGHT" 25 

sailing in view of such an emergency and I had always 
carried it fastened with a clip in an upper vest pocket. 

My stateroom was B 19 on the promenade deck, one 
deck below the deck on which was located the smoke 
room, the lounge and the life-boats. The corridor was 
dimly lighted and the floor had a more perceptible slant 
as I darted into my stateroom, which was on the star- 
board and sinking side of the ship. I hurriedly put on a 
light non-sink garment constructed like a vest, which I 
had Gome provided with, and then donned an overcoat. 

Responding to the list of the ship, the wardrobe door 
swung open and crashed against the wall. My type- 
writer slid off the dressing table and a shower of toilet 
articles pitched from their places on the washstand. I 
grabbed the ship's life-preserver in my left hand and, 
with the flashlight in my right hand, started up the hatch- 
way to the upper deck. 

In the darkness of the boat deck hatchway, the rays of 
my flashlight revealed the chief steward opening the 
door of a switch closet in the panel wall. He pushed on 
a number of switches and instantly the decks of the La- 
conia became bright. From sudden darkness, the ex- 
terior of the ship burst into a blaze of light and it was 
that illumination that saved many lives. 

The Laconia's engines and dynamos had not yet been 
damaged. The torpedo had hit us well astern on the 
starboard side and the bulkheads seemed to be holding 
back from the engine room the flood of water that 
rushed in through the gaping hole in the ship's side. I 
proceeded down the boat deck to my station opposite 
boat No. 10. I looked over the side and down upon the 
water sixty feet below. 

The sudden flashing of the lights on the upper deck 



26 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

made the dark seething waters seem blacker and angrier. 
They rose and fell in troubled swells. 

Steam began to hiss from some of the pipes leading 
up from the engine well. It seemed Hke a dying groan 
from the very vitals of the stricken ship. Clouds of 
white and black smoke rolled up from the giant grey 
funnels that towered above us. 

Suddenly there was a roaring swish as a rocket soared 
upward from the Captain's bridge, leaving a comet's 
tail of fire. I watched it as it described a graceful arc 
and then with an audible pop it burst in a flare of bril- 
liant colour. Its ascent had torn a lurid rent in the black 
sky and had cast a red glare over the roaring sea. 

Already boat No. lo was loading up and men and boys 
were busy with the ropes. I started to help near a davit 
that seemed to be giving trouble but was sternly ordered 
to get out of the way and to get into the boat. 

Other passengers and members of the crew and offi- 
cers of the ship were rushing to and fro along the deck 
strapping their life-preservers to them as they rushed. 
There was some shouting of orders but little or no con- 
fusion. One woman, a blonde French actress, became 
hysterical on the deck^ but two men lifted her bodily off 
her feet and placed her in the life-boat. 

We were on the port side of the ship, the higher side. 
To reach the boats, we had to climb up the slanting deck 
to the edge of the ship. 

On the starboard side, it was different. On that side, 
the decks slanted down toward the water. The ship 
careened in that direction and the life-boats suspended 
from the davits swung clear of the ship's side. 

The list of the ship increased. On the port side, we 
looked down the slanting side of the ship and noticed 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 27 

that her water line on that side was a number of feet 
above the waves. The slant was so pronounced that the 
life-boats, instead of swinging clear from the davits, 
rested against the side of the ship. From my position 
in the life-boat I could see that we were going to have 
difficulty in the descent to the water. 

"Lower away," some one gave the order and we started 
downward with a jerk toward the seemingly hungry, 
rising and falling swells. Then we stopped with another 
jerk and remained suspended in mid-air while the men 
at the bow and the stern swore and tusseled with the 
ropes. 

The stem of the boat was down; the bow up, leaving 
us at an angle of about forty-five degrees. We clung 
to the seats to save ourselves from falling out. 

"Who's got a knife? A knife! A knife!" shouted 
a fireman in the bow. He was bare to the waist and 
perspiration stood out in drops on his face and chest and 
made streaks through the coal dust with which his skia 
was grimed. 

"Great Gawd! Give him a knife," bawled a half- 
dressed jibber ing negro stoker who wrung his hands in 
the stern. 

A hatchet was thrust into my hands and I forwarded it 
to the bow. There was a flash of sparks as it was 
brought dowii with a clang on the holding pulley. One 
strand of the rope parted. 

Down plunged the bow of the boat too quickly for the 
men in the stem. We came to a jerky stop, this time 
with the stem in the air and the bow down, the dangerous 
angle reversed. 

One man in the stern let the rope race through his blis- 
tered fingers. With hands burnt to the quick, he grabbed 



28 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

the rope and stopped the precipitous descent just in time 
to bring the stem level with the bow. 

Then bow and stern tried to lower away together. The 
slant of the ship's side had increased, so that our boat 
instead of sliding down it like a toboggan was held up 
on one side when the taffrail caught on one of the con- 
denser exhaust pipes projecting slightly from the ship's 
side. 

Thus the starboard side of the life-boat stuck fast and 
high while the port side dropped down and once more 
we found ourselves clinging on at a new angle and look- 
ing straight down into the water. 

A hand slipped into mine and a voice sounded huskily 
close to my ear. It was the little old Jewish travelling 
man who was disliked in the smoke room because he 
used to speak too certainly of things about which he 
was uncertain. His slightly Teutonic dialect had made 
him as popular as the smallpox with the British passen- 
gers. 

"My poy, I can't see nutting," he said. "My glasses 
slipped and I am falling. Hold me, please." 

I managed to reach out and join hands with another 
man on the other side of the old man and together we 
held him in. He hung heavily over our arms, gro- 
tesquely grasping all he had saved from his stateroom — a 
gold-headed cane and an extra hat. 

Many feet and hands pushed the boat from the side 
of the ship and we renewed our sagging, scraping, slid- 
ing, jerking descent. It ended as the bottom of the life- 
boat smacked squarely on the pillowy top of a rising 
swell. It felt more solid than mid-air at least. 

But we were far from being off. The pulleys twice 
stuck in their fastings, bow and stern, and the one axe 
was passed forward and back (and with it my flash- 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" 29 

light) as the entangling mesh of ropes that held us to the 
sinking Laconia was cut away. 

Some shout from that confusion of sound caused me 
to look up. I believe I really did so in the fear that 
one of the nearby boats was being lowered upon us. 

Tin funnels enamelled white and containing clusters 
of electric bulbs hung over the side from one of the upper 
decks. I looked up into the cone of one of these lights 
and a bulky object shot suddenly out of the darkness 
into the scope of the electric rays. 

It was a man. His arms were bent up at the elbows ; 
his legs at the knees. He was jumping, with the inten- 
tion, I feared, of landing in our boat, and I prepared to 
avoid the impact. But he had judged his distance well. 

He plunged beyond us and into the water three feet 
from the edge of the boat. He sank from sight, leav- 
ing a white patch of bubbles and foam on the black 
water. He bobbed to the surface almost immediately. 

"It's Dugan,'* shouted a man next to me. 

I flashed a light on the ruddy, smiling face and water 
plastered hair of the little Canadian aviator, our fellow 
saloon passenger. We pulled him over the side and into 
the boat. He spluttered out a mouthful of water. 

"I wonder if there is anything to that lighting three 
matches off the same match," he said. "I was trying to 
loosen the bow rope in this boat. I loosened it and then 
got tangled up in it. When the boat descended, I was 
jerked up back on the deck. Then I jumped for it. Holy 
Moses, but this water is cold.** 

As we pulled away from the side of the ship, its re- 
ceding terraces of glowing port holes and deck lights 
towered above us. The ship was slowly turning over. 

We were directly opposite the engine room section of 
the Laconia. There was a tangle of oars, spars and rig- 



30 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

ging on the seats in our boat, and considerable confusion 
resulted before we could manage to place in operation 
some of the big oars on either side. 

The jibbering, bullet-headed negro was pulling a 
sweep directly behind me and I turned to quiet him as his 
frantic reaches with the oar were jabbing me in the back. 

In the dull light from the upper decks, I looked into 
his slanting face — ^his eyes all whites and his lips moving 
convulsively. He shivered with fright, but in addition 
to that he was freezing in the thin cotton shirt that com- 
posed his entire upper covering. He worked feverishly 
at the oar to warm himself. 

"Get away from her. My Gawd, get away from her," 
he kept repeating. "When the water hits her hot boilers 
she'll blow up the whole ocean and there's just tons 
and tons of shrapnel in her hold." 

His excitement spread to other members of the crew 
in our boat. The ship's baker, designated by his pantry 
headgear of white linen, became a competing alarmist 
and a white fireman, whose blasphemy was nothing short 
of profound, added to the confusion by cursing every 
one. 

It was the tension of the minute — it was the give way 
of overwrought nerves — it was bedlam and nightmare. 

I sought to establish some authority in our boat which 
was about to break out into full mutiny. I made my way 
to the stem. There, huddled up in a great overcoat and 
almost muffled in a ship's life-preserver, I came upon an 
old white-haired man and I remembered him. 

He was a sea-captain of the old sailing days. He had 
been a second cabin passenger with whom I had talked 
before. Earlier in the year he had sailed out of Nova 
Scotia with a cargo of codfish. His schooner, the Se- 
cret, had broken in two in mid-ocean, but he and his 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 31 

J* "^^^"■"■■"^^ 

crew had been picked up by a tramp and taken back to 
New York. 

From there he had sailed on another ship bound for 
Europe, but this ship, a Holland- American Liner, the 
Ryndam, had never reached the other side. In mid- 
Atlantic her captain had lost courage over the U-boat 
threats. He had turned the ship about and returned to 
America. Thus, the Laconia represented the third un- 
successful attempt of this grey-haired mariner to get 
back to his home in England. His name was Captain 
Dear. 

"Our boat's rudder is gone, but we can stear with an 
oar," he said, in a weak-quavering voice — the thin high- 
pitched treble of age. "I will take charge, if you want 
me to, but my voice is gone. I can tell you what to do, 
but you will have to shout the orders. They won't listen 
to me." 

There was only one way to get the attention of the 
crew, and that was by an overpowering blast of pro- 
fanity. I called to my assistance every ear-splitting, 
soul-sizzling oath that I could think of. 

I recited the lurid litany of the army mule skinner 
to his gentle charges and embellished it with excerpts 
from the remarks of a Chicago taxi chauffeur while he 
changed tires on the road with the temperature ten 
below. 

It proved to be an effective combination, this brim- 
stoned oration of mine, because it was rewarded by si- 
lence. 

"Is there a ship's officer in this boat?" I shouted. 
There was no answer. 

"Is there a sailor or a seaman on board?" I inquired, 
and again there was silence from our group of passen- 
gers, firemen, stokers and deck swabs. 



32 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

They appeared to be listening to me and I wished to 
keep my hold on them. I racked my mind for some 
other query to make or some order to direct. Before the 
spell was broken I found one. 

"We will now find out how many of us there are in 
this boat," I announced in the best tones of authority 
that I could assume. "The first man in the bow will 
count one and the next man to him will count two. We 
will count from the bow back to the stern, each man 
taking a number. Begin.*' 

"One," came the quick response from a passenger who 
happened to be the first man in the bow. The enumera- 
tion continued sharply toward the stem. I spoke the last 
number. 

"There are twenty-three of us here," I repeated, 
"there's not a ship's officer or seaman among us, but we 
are extremely fortunate to have with us an old sea-cap- 
tain who has consented to take charge of the boat and 
save our lives. His voice is weak, but I will repeat the 
orders for him, so that all of you can hear. Are you 
ready to obey his orders?" 

There was an almost unanimous acknowledgment of 
assent and order was restored. 

"The first thing to be done," I announced upon Cap- 
tain Dear's instructions, "is to get the same number of 
oars pulling on each side of the boat; to seat ourselves 
so as to keep on an even keel and then to keep the boat's 
head up into the wind so that we won't be swamped by 
the waves." 

With some little difficulty, this rearrangement was ac- 
complished and then we rested on our oars with all eyes 
turned on the still lighted Laconia. The torpedo had hit 
at about 10:30 P. M. according to our ship's time. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 33 

Though listing far over on one side, the Laconia was 
still afloat. 

It must have been twenty minutes after that first shot 
that we heard another dull thud, which was accompanied 
by a noticeable drop in the hulk. The German submarine 
had despatched a second torpedo through the engine 
room and the boat's vitals from a distance of two hun- 
dred yards. 

We watched silently during the next minute as the 
tiers of lights dimmed slowly from white to yellow, then 
to red and then nothing was left but the murky mourning 
of the night which hung over all like a pall. 

A mean, cheese-coloured crescent of a moon revealed 
one horn above a rag bundle of clouds low in the dis- 
tance. A rim of blackness settled around our little 
world, relieved only by a few leering stars in the zenith, 
and, where the Laconia's lights had shown, there re- 
mained only the dim outlines of a blacker hulk stand- 
ing out above the water like a jagged headland, silhou- 
etted against the overcast sky. 

The ship sank rapidly at the stern until at last its nose 
rose out of the water, and stood straight up in the air. 
Then it slid silently down and out of sight like a piece of 
scenery in a panorama spectacle. 

Boat No. 3 stood closest to the place where the ship 
had gone down. As a result of the after suction, the 
small life-boat rocked about in a perilous sea of clashing 
spars and wreckage. 

As the boat's crew steadied its head into the wind, a 
black hulk, glistening wet and standing about eight feet 
above the surface of the water, approached slowly. It 
came to a stop opposite the boat and not ten feet from 
the side of it. It was the submarine. 

"Vot ship vass dot?" were the first words of throaty 



34 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

guttural English that came from a figure which projected 
from the conning tower. 

"The Laconia/' answered the Chief Steward Ballyn, 
who commanded the life-boat. 

"Vot?" 

"The Laconia, Cunard Line/' responded the steward. 

"Vot did she weigh ?" was the next question from the 
submarine. 

"Eighteen thousand tons." 

"Any passengers?" 

"Seventy-three," replied Ballyn, "many of them 
women and children — some of them in this boat. She 
had over two hundred in the crew." 

"Did she carry cargo?" 

"Yes." 

"Iss der Captain in dot boat?"' 

"No," Ballyn answered. 

"Well, I guess you'll be all right. A patrol will pick 
you up some time soon." Without further sound save 
for the almost silent fixing of the conning tower lid, the 
submarine moved off. 

"I thought it best to make my answers sharp and sat- 
isfactory, sir," said Ballyn, when he repeated the conver- 
sation to me word for word. "I was thinking of the 
women and children in the boat. I feared every minute 
that somebody in our boat might make a hostile move, 
fire a revolver, or throw something at the submarine. I 
feared the consequence of such an act." 

There was no assurance of an early pickup so we made 
preparations for a siege with the elements. The weather 
was a great factor. That black rim of clouds looked 
ominous. There was a good promise of rain. February 
has a reputation for nasty weather in the north Atlantic. 
The wind was cold and seemed to be rising. Our boat 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 35 

bobbed about like a cork on the swells, which fortunately 
were not choppy. 

How much rougher seas could the boat weather? 
This question and conditions were debated pro and con. 

Had our rockets been seen ? Did the first torpedo put 
the wireless out of commission? If it had been able to 
operate, had anybody heard our S. O. S.? Was there 
enough food and drinking water in the boat to last? 

This brought us to an inventory of our small craft. 
After considerable difficulty, we found the lamp, a can 
of powder flares, the tin of ship's biscuit, matches and 
spare oil. 

The lamp was lighted. Other lights were now visible. 
As we drifted in the darkness, we could see them every 
time we mounted the crest of the swells. The boats 
carrying these lights remained quite close together at 
first. 

One boat came within sound and I recognised the 
Harry Lauder-like voice of the second assistant purser 
whom I had last heard on Wednesday at the ship's con- 
cert. Now he was singing — "I Want to Marry 'arry," 
and *T Love to be a Sailor." 

There were an American woman and her husband in 
that boat. She told me later that an attempt had been 
made to sing "Tipperary," and **Rule Britannia," but 
the thought of that slinking dark hull of destruction 
that might have been a part of the immediate darkness 
resulted in the abandonment of the effort. 

'Who's the officer in that boat?" came a cheery hail 
from the nearby light. 

"What the hell is it to you?" our half frozen negro 
yelled out for no reason apparent to me other than pos- 
sibly the relief of his feeHngs. 

"Will somebody brain that skunk with a pin?" was 



36 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

the inquiry of our profound oathsman, who also ex- 
pressed regret that he happened to be sitting too far away 
from the negro to reach him. He accompanied the an- 
nouncement with a warmth of language that must have 
relieved the negro of his chill. 

The fear of the boats crashing together produced a 
general inclination toward maximum separation on the 
part of all the little units of survivors, with the result 
that soon the small crafts stretched out for several miles, 
their occupants all endeavoring to hold the heads of the 
boats into the wind. 

Hours passed. The swells slopped over the sides of 
our boat and filled the bottom with water. We bailed it 
continually. Most of us were wet to the knees and 
shivering from the weakening efifects of the icy water. 
Our hands were blistered from pulling at the oars. Our 
boat, bobbing about like a cork, produced terrific nausea, 
and our stomachs ached from vain wrenching. 

And then we saw the first light — the first sign of help 
coming — the first searching glow of white radiance deep 
down the sombre sides of the black pot of night that 
hung over us. I don't know what direction it came 
from — none of us knew north from south — there was 
nothing but water and sky. But the light — it just came 
from over there where we pointed. We nudged dumb, sick 
boat mates and directed their gaze and aroused them to 
an appreciation of the sight that gave us new life. 

It was Vay over there — first a trembling quiver of 
silver against the blackness, then drawing closer, it de- 
fined itself as a beckoning finger, although still too far 
away to see our feeble efforts to attract it. 

Nevertheless, we wasted valuable flares and the ship's 
baker, self-ordained custodian of the biscuit, did the 



WE WOULDN T FIGHT" 37 

honours handsomely to the extent of a biscuit apiece to 
each of the twenty-three occupants of the boat. 

"Pull starboard, sonnies," sang out old Captain Dear, 
his grey chin whiskers bristling with joy in the light of 
the round lantern which he held aloft. 

We pulled — pulled lustily, forgetting the strain and 
ipain of innards torn and racked with violent vomiting, and 
oblivious of blistered palms and wet, half- frozen feet. 

Then a nodding of that finger of Hght, — a .happy, snap- 
ping, crap-shooting finger that seemed to say: "Come 
on, you men," like a dice player wooing the bones — led us 
to believe that our lights had been seen. 

This was the fact, for immediately the oncoming ves- 
sel flashed on its green and red sidelights and we saw it 
was headed for our position. We floated off its stern 
for a while as it manoeuvred for the best position in which 
it could take us on with a sea that was running higher 
and higher. 

The risk of that rescuing ship was great, because there 
was every reason to believe that the submarine that had 
destroyed the Laconia still lurked in the darkness nearby, 
but those on board took the risk and stood by for the 
work of rescue. 

"Come along side port!" was megaphoned to us. As 
fast as we could, we swung under the stern and felt our 
way broadside toward the ship's side. 

Out of the darkness above, a dozen small pocket flash- 
lights blinked down on us and orders began to be shouted 
fast and thick. 

When I look back on the night, I don't know which 
was the more hazardous, going down the slanting side 
of the sinking Laconia or going up the side of the res- 
cuing vessel. 

One minute the swells would lift us almost level with 



38 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

the rail of the low-buih patrol boat and mine sweeper, 
but the next receding wave would swirl us down into a 
darksome gulf over which the ship's side glowered like 
a slimy, dripping cliff. 

A score of hands reached out and we were suspended 
in the husky, tatooed arms of those doughty British Jack 
Tars, looking up into their weather-beaten youthful 
faces, mumbling our thankfulness and reading in the 
gold lettering on their pancake hats the legend, "H. M. 
S. Laburnum.'' We had been six hours in the open boat. 

The others began coming alongside one by one. Wet 
and bedraggled survivors were lifted aboard. Women 
and children first was the rule. 

The scenes of reunion were heart-gripping. Men who 
had remained strangers to one another aboard the La^ 
conia, now wrung each other by the hand or embraced 
without shame the frail little wife of a Canadian chap- 
lain who had found one of her missing children delivered 
up from another boat. She smothered the child with 
ravenous mother kisses while tears of gladness streamed 
down her face. 

Boat after boat came alongside. The water-logged 
craft containing the Captain came last. 

A rousing cheer went up as he stepped on the deck, one 
mangled hand hanging limp at his side. 

The sailors divested themselves of outer clothing and 
passed the garments over to the shivering members of the 
Laconia's crew. 

The cramped officers' quarters down under the quar- 
ter deck were turned over to the women and children. 
Two of the Laconia's stewardesses passed boiling basins 
of navy cocoa and aided in the disentangling of wet and 
matted tresses. 

The men grouped themselves near steam-pipes in the 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 39 

petty officers* quarters or over the grating of the engine 
rooms, where new Hfe was to be had from the upward 
blasts of heated air that brought with them the smell of 
bilge water and oil and sulphur from the bowels of the 
vessel. 

The injured — all minor cases, sprained backs, wrenched 
legs or mashed hands — were put away in bunks under 
the care of the ship's doctor. 

Dawn was melting the eastern ocean grey to pink when 
the task was finished. In the officers' quarters, which 
had now been invaded by the men, the roll of the vessel 
was most perceptible. Each time the floor of the room 
slanted, bottles and cups and plates rolled and slid back 
and forth. 

On the tables and chairs and benches the women rested. 
Sea-sick mothers, trembling from the after-effects of the 
terrifying experience of the night, sought to soothe their 
crying children. 

Then somebody happened to touch a key on the small 
wooden organ that stood against one wall. This was 
enough to send some callous seafaring fingers over the 
ivory keys in a rhythm unquestionably religious and so 
irresistible under the circumstances that, although no one 
seemed to know the words, the air was taken up in a 
reverent, humming chant by all in the room. 

At the last note of the Amen, little Father Warring, 
his black garb snaggled in places and badly soiled, stood 
before the centre table and lifted back his head until the 
morning light, filtering through the opened hatch above 
him, shown down on his kindly, weary face. He recited 
the Lord's prayer and all present joined. The simple, im- 
pressive service of thanksgiving ended as simply as it had 
begun. 

Two minutes later I saw the old Jewish travelling man 



40 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

limping about on one lame leg with a little boy in his 
arms. He was collecting big, round British pennies [for 
the youngster. 

A survey and cruise of the nearby waters revealed no 
more occupied boats and our mine sweeper, with its load 
of survivors numbering two hundred and sixty-seven, 
steamed away to the east. A half an hour steaming and 
the vessel stopped within hailing distance of two sister 
ships, toward one of which an open boat manned by 
jackies was being pulled. 

I saw the hysterical French actress, her blonde hair 
wet and bedraggled, lifted out of the boat and carried 
up the companionway. Then a little boy, his fresh pink 
face and golden hair shining in the morning sun, was 
passed upward, followed by some other survivors, num- 
bering fourteen in all, who had been found half-drowned 
and almost dead from exposure in a partially wrecked 
boat that was picked up just as it was sinking. It was 
in that boat that one American woman and her daughter 
died. One of the survivors of the boat told me the 
story. He said : 

''Our boat was No. 8. It was smashed in the lowering. 
I was in the bow. Mrs. Hoy and her daughter were sit- 
ting toward the stern. The boat filled with water rap- 
idly. 

"It was no use trying to bail it out. There was a 
big hole in the side and it came in too fast. The boat's 
edge sank to the level of the water and only the air- 
tanks kept it afloat. 

"It was completely awash. Every swell rode clear 
over our heads and we had to hold our breath until we 
came to the surface again. The cold water just takes 
the life out of you. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 41 

"We saw the other boats showing their lights and 
drifting further and further away from us. We had no 
lights. And then, towards morning, .we saw the rescuing 
ship come up into the cluster of other life-boats that had 
drifted so far away from us. One by one we saw their 
lights disappear as they were taken on board. 

**We shouted and screamed and shrieked at the tops of 
our voices, but could not attract the attention of any of 
the other boats or the rescuing ship, and soon we saw 
its lights blink out. We were left there in the darkness 
wdth the wind howling and the sea rolling higher every 
minute. 

*The women got weaker and weaker. Maybe they had 
been dead for some time. I don't know, but a wave came 
and washed both Mrs. Hoy and her daughter out of the 
boat. There were life-belts around their bodies and they 
drifted away with their arms locked about one another." 

With such stories ringing in our ears, with exchanges 
of experiences pathetic and humorous, we steamed into 
Queenstown harbour shortly after ten o'clock that night. 
We had been attacked at a point two hundred miles off 
the Irish coast and of our passengers and crew, thirteen 
had been lost. 

As I stepped ashore, a Britisher, a fellow-passenger 
aboard the Laconia, who knew me as an American, 
stepped up to me. During the voyage we had had many 
conversations concerning the possibility of America en- 
tering the war. Now he slapped me on the back with 
this question, 

**Well, old Casus Belli," he said, "is this your bloom- 
ing overt act?" 

I did not answer him, but thirty minutes afterward 
I was pounding out on a typewriter the introduction to a 



42 "AND THEY THOUGHT 



four thousand word newspaper article which I cabled 
that night and which put the question up to the American 
public for an answer. 

Five weeks later the United States entered the war. 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" 43 

CHAPTER n 
Pershing's arrival in Europe 

Lean, clean, keen — that's the way they looked — that 
first trim little band of American fighting men who 
made their historic landing on the shores of England, 
June 8th, 191 7. 

I went down from London to meet them at the port 
of arrival. In my despatches of that date, I, nor none of 
the other correspondents, was permitted to mention the 
name of the port. This was supposed to be the secret 
that was to be religiously kept and the British censor 
was on the job religiously. 

The name of the port was excluded from all Ameri* 
can despatches but the British censor saw no reason to 
withhold transmission of the following sentence — "Per- 
shing landed to-day at an English port and was given 
a hearty welcome by the Mayor of Liverpool.'* 

So I am presuming at this late date of writing that 
it would serve no further purpose to refrain from an- 
nouncing flatly that General John J. Pershing, Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces 
overseas, and his staff, landed on the date above men- 
tioned, at Liverpool, England. 

The sun was shining brightly on the Mersey when the 
giant ocean liner, the Baltic, came slowly up the harbour 
in the tow of numerous puffing tugs. The great grey 
vessel that had safely completed the crossing of the sub- 
marine zone, was warped to the dock-side. 

On the quay there were a full brass band and an hon- 
ourary escort of British soldiers. While the moorings 



44 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

were being fastened, General Pershing, with his staff, 
appeared on the promenade deck on the shore side of 
the vessel. 

His appearance was the signal for a crash of cymbals 
and drums as the band blared out the "Star Spangled 
Banner." The American commander and the officers 
ranged in line on either side of him, stood stiffly at at- 
tention, with right hands raised in salute to the visors 
of their caps. 

On the shore the lines of British soldiery brought their 
arms to the present with a snap. Civilian witnesses of 
the ceremony bared their heads. The first anthem was 
followed by the playing of "God Save the King." All 
present remained at the salute. 

As the gangplank was lashed in place, a delegation 
of British military and civilian officials boarded the ship 
and were presented to the General. Below, on the dock, 
every newspaper correspondent and photographer in the 
British Isles, I think, stood waiting in a group that far 
outnumbered the other spectators. 

There was reason for this seeming lack of proportion. 
The fact was that but very few people in all of England, 
as well as in all of the United States, had known that 
General Pershing was to land that day. 

Few had known that he was on the water. The British 
Admiralty, then in complete control of the ocean lines 
between America and the British Isles, had guarded well 
the secret. England lost Kitchener on the sea and now 
with the sea peril increased a hundredfold, England took 
pains to guard well the passage of this standard-bearer 
of the American millions that were to come. 

Pershing and his staff stepped ashore. Lean, clean, 
keen — those are the words that described their appear- 
ance. That was the way they impressed their critical 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 45 

brothers in arms, the all-observing military dignities that 
presented Britain's hearty, unreserved welcome at the 
water's edge. That was the way they appeared to the 
proud American citizens, residents of those islands, who 
gathered to meet them. 

The British soldiers admired the height and shoulders 
of our first military samples. The British soldier ap- 
proves of a greyhound trimness in the belt zone. He 
likes to look on carriage and poise. He appreciates a 
steady eye and stiff jaw. He is attracted by a voice 
that rings sharp and firm. The British soldier calls such 
a combination, "a real soldier." 

He saw one, and more than one, that morning shortly 
after nine o'clock when Pershing and his staff commit- 
ted the date to history by setting foot on British soil. 
Behind the American commander walked a staff of Amer- 
ican officers whose soldierly bearing and general appear- 
ance brought forth sincere expressions of commendation 
from the assemblage on the quay. 

At attention on the dock, facing the sea-stained flanks 
of the liner Baltic, a company of Royal Welsh Fusiliers 
stood like a frieze of clay models in stainless khaki, pol- 
ished brass and shining leather. 

General Pershing inspected the guard of honour with 
keen interest. Walking beside the American commander 
was the considerably stouter and somewhat shorter Lieu- 
tenant General Sir William Pitcairn Campbell, K.C.B., 
Chief of the Western Command of the British Home 
Forces. 

Pershing's inspection of that guard was not the cur- 
sory one that these honourary affairs usually are. Not a 
detail of uniform or equipment on any of the men in the 
guard was overlooked. The American commander's at- 
tention was as keen to boots, rifles and belts, as though 



46 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

he had been a captain preparing the small command for 
a strenuous inspection at the hands of some exacting 
superior. 

As he walked down the stiff, standing line, his keen 
blue eyes taking in each one of the men from head to 
foot, he stopped suddenly in front of one man in the 
ranks. That man was File Three in the second set of 
fours. He was a pale-faced Tommy and on one of his 
sleeves there was displayed two slender gold bars, placed 
on the forearm. 

The decoration was no larger than two matches in a 
row and on that day it had been in use hardly more than 
a year, yet neither its minuteness nor its meaning es- 
caped the eyes of the American commander. 

Pershing turned sharply and faced File Three. 

"Where did you get your two wounds?" he asked. 

"At Givenchy and Lavenze, sir," replied File Three, 
his face pointed stiffly ahead. File Three, even now 
under twenty-one years of age, had received his wounds 
in the early fighting that is called the battle of Loos. 

"You are a man," was the sincere, all-meaning re- 
joinder of the American commander, who accompanied 
his remark with a straightforward look into the eyes of 
File Three. 

Completing the inspection without further incident, 
General Pershing and his staff faced the honour guard 
and stood at the salute, while once more the thunderous 
military band played the national anthems of America 
and Great Britain. 

The ceremony was followed by a reception in the 
cabin of the Baltic, where General Pershing received the 
Lord Mayor of Liverpool, the Lady Mayoress, and a dele- 
gation of civil authorities. The reception ended when 
General Pershing spoke a few simple words to the as- 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" 47 

sembled representatives of the British and American 
Press. 

''More of us are coming," was the keynote of his mod- 
est remarks. Afterward he was escorted to the quay- 
side station, where a special train of the type labelled 
Semi-Royal was ready to make the express run to Lon- 
don. 

The reception at the dock had had none of the features 
of a demonstration by reason of the necessity for the 
ship's arrival being secret, but as soon as the Baltic had 
landed, the word of the American commander's arrival 
spread through Liverpool like wildfire. 

The railroad from the station lay through an indus- 
trial section of the city. Through the railroad ware- 
houses the news had preceded the train. Warehouse- 
men, porters and draymen crowded the tops of the cot- 
ton bales and oil barrels on both sides of the track as the 
train passed through. 

Beyond the sheds, the news had spread through the 
many floors of the flour mills and when the Pershing 
train passed, handkerchiefs and caps fluttered from every 
crowded door and window in the whitened walls. Most 
of the waving was done by a new kind of flour-girl, one 
who did not wave an apron because none of them were 
dressed that way. 

From his car window, General Pershing returned the 
greetings of the trousered girls and women who were 
making England's bread while their husbands, fathers, 
brothers, sweethearts and sons were making German 
cemeteries. 

In London, General Pershing and his staff occupied 
suites at the Savoy Hotel, and during the four or five 
days of the American commander's sojourn in the capi- 
tal of the British Empire, a seemingly endless line of 



48 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

visitors of all the Allied nationalities called to present 
their compliments. 

The enlisted men of the General's staff occupied quar- 
ters in the old stone barracks of the Tower of London, 
where they were the guests of the men of that artillery- 
organisation which prefixes an ''Honourable" to its name 
and has been assigned for centuries to garrison duty in 
the Tower of London. 

Our soldiers manifested naive interest in some of 
England's most revered traditions and particularly in 
connection with historical events related to the Tower 
of London. On the second day of their occupation of 
this old fortress, one of the warder^, a "Beef-eater" in 
full mediaeval regalia, was escorting a party of the Yanks 
through the dungeons. 

He stopped in one dungeon and lined the party up in 
front of a stone block in the centre of the floor. After 
a silence of a full minute to produce a proper degree of 
impressiveness for the occasion, the warder announced, 
in a respectful whisper: 

"This is where Anne Boleyn was executed." 

The lined-up Yanks took a long look at the stone block. 
A silence followed during the inspection. And then one 
regular, desiring further information, but not wishing 
to be led into any traps of British wit, said: 

"All right, I'll bite; what did Annie do?" 

Current with the arrival of our men and their recep- 
tion by the honour guard of the Welsh Fusiliers there 
was a widespread revival of an old story which the 
Americans liked to tell in the barrack rooms at night. 

When the Welsh Fusiliers received our men at the 
dock of Liverpool, they had with them their historical 
mascot, a large white goat with horns encased in in- 
scribed silver. The animal wore suspended from its neck 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 49 

a large silver plate, on which was inscribed a partial his- 
tory of the Welsh Fusiliers. 

Some of these Fusiliers told our men the story. 

"It was our regiment — the Welsh Fusiliers," one of 
them said, "that fought you Yanks at Bunker Hill. And 
it was at Bunker Hill that our regiment captured the 
great-great-granddaddy of this same white goat, and his 
descendants are ever destined to be the mascot of our 
regiment. You see, we have still got your goat." 

"But you will notice," replied one of the Yanks, "weVe 
got the hill." 

During the four days in London, General Pershing 
was received by King George and Queen Mary at Buck- 
ingham Palace. The American commander engaged in 
several long conferences at the British War Office, and 
then with an exclusion of entertainment that was pain- 
ful to the Europeans, he made arrangements to leave for 
his new post in France. 

A specially written permission from General Pershing 
made it possible for me to accompany him on that his- 
toric crossing between England and France. Secret or- 
ders for the departure were given on the afternoon and 
evening of June 12th. Before four o'clock of the next 
morning, June 13th, I breakfasted in the otherwise de- 
serted dining-room of the Savoy with the General and 
his staff. 

Only a few sleepy-eyed attendants were in the halls 
and lower rooms of the Savoy. In closed automobiles 
we were whisked away to Charing Cross Station. AVe 
boarded a special train whose destination was unknown. 
The entire party was again in the hands of the Intelli- 
gence Section of the British Admiralty, and every pos- 
sible means was taken to suppress all definite informa- 
tion concerning the departure. 



§0 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

The special train containing General Pershing and his 
staff reached Folkstone at about seven o'clock in the 
morning. We left the train at the dockside and boarded 
the swift Channel steamer moored there. A small vocif- 
erous contingent of English Tommies returning to the 
front from leave in "Blighty" were crowded on all decks 
in the stern. 

With life-boats swinging out over the side and every 
one wearing life-preservers, we steamed out of Folk- 
stone harbour to challenge the submarine dangers of the 
Channel. 

The American commander occupied a forward cabin 
suite on the upper deck. His aides and secretaries had 
already transformed it into a business-like apartment. 
In the General's mind there was no place or time for any 
consideration of the dangers of the Channel crossing. 
Although the very waters through which we dashed were 
known to be infested with submarines which would have 
looked upon him as capital prey, I don't believe the Gen- 
eral ever gave them as much as a thought. 

Every time I looked through the open door of his 
cabin, he was busy dictating letters to his secretaries or 
orders or instructions to his aides or conferring with his 
Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Harboard. To the 
American commander, the hours necessary for the dash 
across the Channel simply represented a little more time 
which he could devote to the plans for the great work 
ahead of him. 

Our ship was guarded on all sides and above. Swift 
torpedo destroyers dashed to and fro under our bow and 
stern and circled us continually. In the air above hydro- 
airplanes and dirigible balloons hovered over the waters 
surrounding us, keeping sharp watch for the first ap- 
pearance of the dark sub-sea hulks of destruction. 




THE ARRIVAL IK LONDOX, SHOWING GENERAL PERSHING, 
FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH, LORD DERBY, 
AND ADMIRAL SIMS 




GENERAL PERSHING BOWING TO THE CROWD IN PARIS 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT' 



We did not learn until the next day that while we were 
making that Channel crossing, the German air forces had 
crossed the Channel in a daring daylight raid and were 
at that very hour dropping bombs on London around the 
very hotel which General Pershing had just vacated. 
Some day, after the war, I hope to ascertain whether the 
commander of that flight of bombing Gothas started on 
his expedition over London with a special purpose in 
view and whether that purpose concerned the supposed 
presence there of the commander-in-chief of the Amer- 
ican millions that were later to change the entire com- 
plexion of the war against Germany. 

It was a beautiful sunlight day. It was not long be- 
fore the coast line of France began to push itself up 
through the distant Channel mists and make itself visible 
on the horizon. I stood in the bow of the ship looking 
toward the coast line and silent with thoughts concern- 
ing the momentousness of the approaching historical 
event. 

It happened that I looked back amidships and saw a 
solitary figure standing on the bridge of the vessel. It 
was General Pershing. He seemed rapt in deep thought. 
He wore his cap straight on his head, the visor shading 
his eyes. He stood tall and erect, his hands behind him, 
his feet planted slightly apart to accommodate the gentle 
roll of the ship. 

He faced due east and his eyes were directed toward 
the shores of that foreign land ,which we were approach- 
ing. It seemed to me as I watched him that his mind 
must have been travelling back more than a century to 
that day in history when another soldier had stood on 
the bridge of another vessel, crossing those same waters, 
but in an almost opposite direction. 

It seemed to me that he must have been thinking of 



§2 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

that historical character who made just such a journey 
more than a hundred years before, — a great soldier who 
left his homeland to sail to other foreign shores halfway 
around the world and there to lend his sword in the fight 
for the sacred principles of Democracy. It seemed to 
me that day that Pershing thought of Lafayette. 

As we drew close to the shore, I noticed an enormous 
concrete breakwater extending out from the harbour en- 
trance. It was surmounted by a wooden railing and on 
the very end of it, straddling the rail, was a small French 
boy. His legs were bare and his feet were encased in 
heavy wooden shoes. On his head he wore a red stock- 
ing cap of the liberty type. As we came within hailing 
distance, he gave to us the first greeting that came from 
the shores of France to these first arriving American 
soldiers. 

''Vive V Amerique r he shouted, cupping his hands to 
his mouth and sending his shrill voice across the water 
to us. Pershing on the bridge heard the salutation. He 
smiled, touched his hand to his hat and waved to the lad 
on the railing. 

We landed that day at Boulogne, June 13th, 191 7. 
Military bands massed on the quay, blared out the Amer- 
ican National Anthem as the ship was warped alongside 
the dock. Other ships in the busy harbour began blow- 
ing whistles and ringing bells, loaded troop and hospital 
ships lying nearby burst forth into cheering. The news 
spread like contagion along the harbour front. 

As the gangplank was lowered, French military digni- 
taries in dress uniforms resplendent with gold braid, but- 
tons and medals, advanced to that part of the deck amid- 
ships where the General stood. They saluted respectfully 
and pronounced elaborate addresses in their native tongue. 
They were followed by numerous French Government 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" 53 

officials in civilian dress attire. The city, the depart- 
ment and the nation were represented in the populous 
delegations who presented their compliments, and con- 
veyed to the American commander the unstinted and 
heartfelt welcome of the entire people of France. 

Under the train sheds on the dock, long stiff, standing 
ranks of French poilus wearing helmets and their light 
blue overcoats pinned back at the knees, presented arms 
as the General walked down the lines inspecting them. 
At one end of the line, rank upon rank of French marines, 
and sailors with their flat hats with red tassels, stood 
at attention awaiting inspection. 

The docks and train sheds were decorated with French 
and American flags and yards and yards of the mutually- 
owned red, white and blue. Thousands of spectators 
began to gather in the streets near the station, and their 
continuous cheers sufficed to rapidly augment their own 
numbers. 

Accompanied by a veteran French colonel, one of 
whose uniform sleeves was empty, General Pershing, as 
a guest o^ the city of Boulogne, took a motor ride through 
the streets of this busy port city. He was quickly re- 
turned to the station, where he and his staff boarded a 
special train for Paris. I went with them. 

That train to Paris was, of necessity, slow. It pro- 
ceeded slowly under orders and with a purpose. No one 
in France, with the exception of a select official circle, 
had been aware that General Pershing was arriving that 
day until about thirty minutes before his ship was warped 
into the dock at Boulogne. It has always been a mystery 
to me how the French managed to decorate the station 
at Boulogne upon such short notice. 

Thus it was that the train crawled slowly toward 
Paris for the purpose of giving the French capital time 



54 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

to throw off the coat of war weariness that it had worn 
for three and a half years and don gala attire for this 
occasion. Paris made full use of every minute of that 
time, as we found when the train arrived at the French 
capital late in the afternoon. The evening papers in 
Paris had carried the news of the American comman- 
der's landing on the shores of France, and Paris was 
ready to receive him as Paris had never before received 
a world's notable. 

The sooty girders of the Gare du Nord shook with 
cheers when the special train pulled in. The airles of the 
great terminal were carpeted with red plush. A battalion 
of bearded poilus of the Two Hundred and Thirty-sev- 
enth Colonial Regiment was lined up on the platform like 
a wall of silent grey, bristling with bayonets and shiny ^ 
trench helmets. 

General Pershing stepped from his private car. Flash- | 
lights boomed and batteries of camera men manoeuvred ' 
into positions for the lens barrage. The band of the 
Garde Republicaine blared forth the strains of the ''Star 
Spangled Banner," bringing all the military to a halt and 
a long standing salute. It was followed by the ''Mar- 
seillaise." 

At the conclusion of the train-side greetings and intro- 
ductions. Marshal Joffre and General Pershing walked 
down the platform together. The tops of the cars of 
every train in the station were crowded with workmen. 
As the tall, slender American commander stepped into 
view, the privileged observers on the car-tops began to 
cheer. 

A minute later, there was a terrific roar from beyond 
the walls of the station. The crowds outside had heard 
the cheering within. They took it up with thousands of 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" SS 

throats. They made their welcome a ringing one. Paris 
took Pershing by storm. 

The General was ushered into the specially decorated 
reception chamber, which was hung and carpeted with 
brilliant red velvet and draped with the Allied flags. 
After a brief formal exchange of greetings in this large 
chamber, he and his staff were escorted to the line of 
waiting automobiles at the side of the station in the Rue 
de Roubaix. 

Pershing's appearance in the open was the cue for 
wild, unstinted applause and cheering from the crowds 
which packed the streets and jammed the windows of the 
tall buildings opposite. 

General Pershing and M. Painleve, Minister of War, 
took seats in a large automobile. They were preceded 
by a motor containing United States Ambassador Sharp 
and former Premier Viviani. The procession started to 
the accompaniment of martial music by massed military 
bands in the courtyard of the station. It passed through 
the Rue de Compiegne, the Rue de Lafayette, the Place 
de rOpera, the Boulevard des Capucines, the Place de la 
Madeleine, the Rue Royale, to the Place de la Concorde. 

There were some fifty automobiles in the line, the rear 
of which was brought up by an enormous motor-bus 
load of the first American soldiers from the ranks to 
pass through the streets of Paris. 

The crowds overflowed the sidewalks. They extended 
from the building walls out beyond the curbs and into 
the streets, leaving but a narrow lane through which the 
motors pressed their way slowly and with the exercise of 
much care. From the crowded balconies and windows 
overlooking the route, women and children tossed down 
showers of flowers and bits of coloured paper. 

The crowds were so dense that other street traffic be- 



56 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

came marooned in the dense sea of joyously excited and 
gesticulating French people. Vehicles thus marooned im- 
mediately became islands of vantage. They were soon 
covered with men and women and children, who climbed 
on top of them and clung to the sides to get a better look 
at the khaki-clad occupants of the autos. 

Old grey-haired fathers of French fighting men bared 
their heads and with tears streaming down their cheeks 
shouted greetings to the tall, thin, grey-moustached 
American commander who was leading new armies to 
the support of their sons. Women heaped armfuls of 
roses into the General's car and into the cars of other 
American officers that followed him. Paris street gamins 
climbed the lamp-posts and waved their caps and wooden 
shoes and shouted shrilly. 

American flags and red, white and blue bunting waved 
wherever the eye rested. English-speaking Frenchmen 
proudly explained to the uninformed that "Pershing" 
was pronounced "Peur-chigne" and not "Pair-shang." 

Paris was not backward in displaying its knowledge of 
English. Gay Parisiennes were eager to make use of all 
the English at their command, that they might welcome 
the new arrivals in their native tongue. 

Some of these women shouted ''Hello," "Keep, heep, 
hourrah," "Good morning," "How are you, keed?" and 
"Cock-tails for two." Some of the expressions were not 
so inappropriate as they sounded. 

Occasionally there came from the crowds a good old 
genuine American whoop-em-up yell. This happened 
when the procession passed groups of American ambu- 
lance workers and other sons of Uncle Sam, wearing the 
uniforms of the French, Canadian and English Corps. 

They joined with Australians and South African sol- 
diers on leave to cheer on the new-coming Americans 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 57 



with such spontaneous expressions as "Come on, you 
Yanks," *'Now let's get 'em," and "Eat 'em up, Uncle 
Sam." 

The frequent stopping of the procession by the crowds 
made it happen quite frequently that the automobiles 
were completely surrounded by enthusiasts, who reached 
up and tried to shake hands with the occupants. Pretty 
girls kissed their hands and blew the invisible confection 
toward the men in khaki. 

The bus-load of enlisted men bringing up the rear 
received dozens of bouquets from the girls. The flowers 
were hurled at them from all directions. Every two 
hundred feet the French would organise a rousing shout, 
"Vive V Amerique r for them. 

Being the passive recipients of this unusual adulation 
produced only embarrassment on the part of the regulars 
who simply had to sit there, smiling and taking it. Just 
to break the one-sided nature of the demonstrations, one 
of the enlisted men stood up in his seat and, addressing 
himself to his mates, shouted : 

"Come on, fellows, let's give 'em a Veever' ourselves. 
Now all together." 

The bus-load rose to its feet like one man and shouted 
**Veever for France." Their "France" rhymed with 
"pants," so that none of the French understood it, but 
they did understand the sentiment behind the husky 
American lungs. 

Through such scenes as these, the procession reached 
the great Place de la Concorde. In this wide, paved, open 
space an enormous crowd had assembled. As the autos 
appeared the cheering, the flower throwing, the tumultu- 
ous kiss-blowing began. It increased in intensity as the 
motors stopped in front of the Hotel Crillon into which 
General Pershing disappeared, followed by his staff. 



58 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

Immediately the cheering changed to a tremendous 
clamorous demand for the General's appearance on the 
balcony in front of his apartments. 

''Au halcon, au balcon/' were the cries that filled the 
Place. The crowd would not be denied. 

General Pershing stepped forth on the balcony. He 
stood behind the low marble railing, and between two 
enormous white-stoned columns. A cluster of the Allied 
flags was affixed to each column. The American com- 
mander surveyed the scene in front of him. 

There are no trees or shrubbery in the vast Place de 
la Concorde. Its broad paved surface is interrupted only 
by artistically placed groups of statuary and fountains. 

To the General's right, as he faced the Place, were the 
trees and greenery of the broad Champs Elysees. On 
his left were the fountains and the gardens of the Tuil- 
leries. At the further end of the Place, five hundred feet 
straight in front of him, were the banks and the orna- 
mental bridges of the Seine, beyond which could be seen 
the columned fagade of the Chambre des Deputies, and 
above and beyond that, against the blue sky of a late 
June afternoon, rose the majestic golden dome of the 
Invalides, over the tomb of Napoleon. 

General Pershing looked down upon the sea of faces 
turned up toward him, and then it seemed that nature 
desired to play a part in the ceremony of that great day. 
A soft breeze from the Champs Elysees touched the clus- 
ter of flags on the General's right and from all the Allied 
emblems fastened there it selected one flag. 

The breeze tenderly caught the folds of this flag and 
wafted them across the balcony on which the General 
bowed. He saw and recognised that flag. He extended 
his hand, caught the flag in his fingers and pressed it to 
his lips. All France and all America represented in that 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 59 

vast throng that day cheered to the mighty echo when 
Pershing kissed the tri-colour of France. 

It was a tremendous, unforgettable incident. It was 
exceeded by no other incident during those days of re- 
ceptions and ceremonies, except one. That was an inci- 
dent which occurred not in the presence of thousands, 
but in a lonely old burial ground on the outskirts of 
Paris. This happened several days after the demonstra- 
tion in the Place de la Concorde. o 

On that day of bright sunshine. General Pershing and 
a small party of officers, French and American, walked 
through the gravel paths of Picpus Cemetery in the sub- 
urbs of Paris, where the bodies of hundreds of those 
who made the history of France are buried. 

Several French women in deep mourning courtesied as 
General Pershing passed. His party stopped in front of 
two marble slabs that lay side by side at the foot of a 
granite monument. From the General's party a French- 
man stepped forward and, removing his high silk hat, he 
addressed the small group in quiet, simple tones and well- 
chosen English words. He was the Marquis de Cham- 
brun. He said: 

"On this spot one can say that the historic ties be- 
tween our nations are not the result of the able schemes 
of skilful diplomacy. No, the principles of liberty, jus- 
tice and independence are the glorious links between our 
nations. 

"These principles have enlisted the hearts of our de- 
mocracies. They have made the strength of their union 
and have brought about the triumph of their efforts. 

"To-day, when, after nearly a century and a half, 
America and France are engaged in a conflict for the 



6o "AND THEY THOUGHT 

same cause upon which their early friendship was based, 
we are filled with hope and confidence. 

"We know that our great nations are together with 
our Allies invincible, and we rejoice to think that the 
United States and France are reunited in the fight for 
liberty, and will reconsecrate, in a new victory, their ever- 
lasting friendship of which your presence to-day at this 
grave is an exquisite and touching token." 

General Pershing advanced to the tomb and placed 
upon the marble slab an enormous wreath of pink and 
white roses. Then he stepped back. He removed his 
cap and held it in both hands in front of him. The 
bright sunlight shone down on his silvery grey hair. 
Looking down at the grave, he spoke in a quiet, impres- 
sive tone four simple, all-meaning words : 

"Lafayette, we are here.*' 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT* 61 



CHAPTER III 

THE LANDING OF THE FIRST AMERICAN CONTINGENT 

IN FRANCE 

The first executive work of the American Expedi- 
tionary Forces overseas was performed in a second floor 
suite of the Crillon Hotel on the Place de la Concorde in 
Paris. This suite was the first temporary headquarters 
of the American commander. 

The tall windows of the rooms looked down on the 
historic Place which was the scene of so many momentous 
events in French history. The windows were hardly a 
hundred yards from the very spot where the guillotine 
dripped red in the days of the Terror. It was here that 
the heads of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette dropped 
into the basket. 

During General Pershing's comparatively brief occu- 
pancy of these headquarters, the reception rooms were 
constantly banked with fresh-cut flowers, the daily gifts 
of the French people, — flowers that were replenished 
every twenty-four hours. The room was called the 
**Salon des Batailles." 

In one corner of the room, near a window overlooking 
the Place, was General Pershing's table. It was adorned 
with a statuette of General Joffre and a cluster of minia- 
tures of captured German standards. Extending from 
the floor to the ceiling on one of the walls were two enor- 
mous oil copies of "La Bataille de Fontenoy" and the 
"Passage du Rhin." A large flag-draped photograph of 
President Wilson occupied a place of honour on an easel 
at one end of the room. 



62 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

During the first week that General Pershing stopped 
at the hotel, the sidewalk and street beneath his win- 
dows were constantly crowded with people. The crowds 
waited there all day long, just in the hope of catching 
a glimpse of the American commander if he should hap- 
pen to be leaving or returning to his quarters. It seemed 
as if every Parisienne and Parisian had taken upon her- 
self and himself the special duty of personally observing 
General Pershing, of waving him an enthusiastic "vive" 
and possibly being within the scope of his returning sa- 
lute. 

But the American commander would not permit dem- 
onstrations and celebrations to interfere with the impor- 
tant duties that he faced. Two days are all that were de- 
voted to these social ceremonies which the enthusiastic 
and hospitable French would have made almost endless. 
Dinners, receptions and parades were ruthlessly erased 
from the working day calendar. The American com- 
mander sounded the order "To work" with the same 
martial precision as though the command had been a 
sudden call 'To arms." 

On the morning of the third day after General Per- 
shing's arrival in Paris, the typewriters began clicking 
incessantly and the telephones began ringing busily in the 
large building which was occupied on that day as the 
headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces in 
France. 

This building was Numbers 27 and 31 Rue de Constan- 
dne. It faced the trees and shrubbery bordering the 
approach to the Seine front of the Invalides. The build- 
ing was two stories high with grey-white walls and a 
mansard roof. At that time it could be immediately 
identified as the one in front of which stood a line of 
American motor cars, as the one where trim United 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" 63 

States regulars walked sentry post past the huge doors 
through which frequent orderlies dashed with messages. 

Ten days before, the building had been the residence of 
a Marquis and had contained furniture and art valued 
at millions of francs. All of those home-hke character- 
istics had been removed so effectively that even the name 
of the kindly Marquis had been forgotten. I am sure 
that he, himself, at the end of that ten-day period could 
not have recognised his converted salons where the elab- 
orate ornamentation had been changed to the severe sim- 
plicity typical of a United States Army barracks. 

General Pershing's office was located on the second 
floor of the house and in one corner. In those early 
days it was carpetless and contained almost a monkish 
minimum of furniture. There were the General's chair 
and his desk on which there stood a peculiar metal stand- 
ard for one of those one-piece telephone sets with which 
Americans are familiar only in French stage settings. A 
book-case with glass doors, a stenographer's table and 
chair, and two red plush upholstered chairs, for visitors, 
comprised the furniture inventory of the room. 

One of the inner walls of the room was adorned with 
a large mirror with a gilt frame, and in the other wall 
was a plain fireplace. There were tall windows in the 
two outer walls which looked out on the Rue de Con- 
stantine and the Rue de Grenelle. Opposite the Rue de 
Grenelle windows there was a small, deeply shaded park 
where children rolled hoops during the heat of the day 
and where convalescent French soldiers sat and watched 
the children at play or perhaps discussed the war and 
other things with the nurse-maids. 

This was the first workshop in France of the Ameri- 
can commander-in-chief. Adjoining rooms to the left 
and right were occupied by the General's staff and his 



64 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

aides. And it was in these rooms that the overseas plans 
for the landing of the first American armed contingent 
in France were formulated. 

It is safe now to mention that St. Nazaire on the west 
coast of France was the port at which our first armed 
forces disembarked. I was in Paris when the informa- 
tion of their coming was whispered to a few chosen 
correspondents who were to be privileged to witness this 
historical landing. 

This was the first time in the history of our nation 
that a large force of armed Americans was to cross the 
seas to Europe. For five and a half months prior to the 
date of their landing, the ruthless submarine policy of 
the Imperial German Government had been in effect, and 
our troop ships with those initial thousands of American 
soldiers represented the first large Armada to dare the 
ocean crossing since Germany had instituted her sub-sea 
blockade zone in February of that same year. 

Thus it was that any conversation concerning the fact 
that our men were on the seas and at the mercy of the 
U-boats was conducted with the greatest of care behind 
closed doors. In spite of the efforts of the French agents 
of contra espionage, Paris and all France, for that mat- 
ter, housed numerous spies. There were some anxious 
moments while that first contingent was on the water. 

Our little group of correspondents was informed that 
we should be conducted by American officers to the port 
of landing, but the name of that port was withheld from 
us. By appointment we met at a Paris railroad station 
where we were provided with railroad tickets. We took 
our places in compartments and rode for some ten or 
twelve hours, arriving early the next morning at St. 
Nazaire. 

This little village on the coast of Brittany was tucked 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT^- 65 



away there in the golden sands of the seashore. Its 
houses had walls of white stucco and gabled roofs of 
red tile. In the small rolling hills behind it were green 
orchards and fields of yellow wheat. The villagers, old 
women in their starched white head-dresses and old men 
wearing faded blue smocks and wooden shoes, were un- 
mindful of the great event for which history had des- 
tined their village. 

On the night before the landing the townspeople had 
retired with no knowledge of what was to happen on 
the following day. In the morning they awoke to find 
strange ships that had come in the night, riding safely 
at anchor in the harbour. The wooden shutters began 
to pop open with bangs as excited heads, encased in 
peaked flannel nightcaps, protruded themselves from bed- 
room windows and directed anxious queries to those who 
happened to be abroad at that early hour. 

St. Nazaire came to life more quickly that morning 
than ever before in its history. The Mayor of the town 
was one of the busiest figures on the street. In high hat 
and full dress attire, he hurried about trying to assemble 
the village orchestra of octogenarian fiddlers and flute 
players to play a welcome for the new arrivals. The 
townspeople neglected their cafe au lait to rush down to 
the quay to look at the new ships. 

The waters of the harbour sparkled in the early morn- 
ing sunlight. The dawn had been grey and misty, but 
now nature seemed to smile. The strange ships from 
the other side of the world were grey in hulk but now 
there were signs of life and colour aboard each one of 
them. 

Beyond the troop ships lay the first United States war- 
ships, units of that remarkable fighting organisation 
which in the year that was to immediately follow that 



66 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

very day were to escort safely across three thousand 
miles of submarine-infested water more than a million 
and a half American soldiers. 

The appearance of these first warships of ours was 
novel to the French townspeople. Our ships had peculiar 
looking masts, masts which the townspeople compared to 
the baskets which the French peasants carry on their 
backs when they harvest the lettuce. Out further from 
the shore were our low-lying torpedo destroyers, pointed 
toward the menace of the outer deep. 

Busy puffing tugs were warping the first troop ship 
toward the quay-side. Some twenty or thirty American 
sailors and soldiers, who had been previously landed by 
launch to assist in the disembarkation, were handling the 
lines on the dock. 

When but twenty feet from the quay-side, the succes- 
sive decks of the first troop ship took on the appearance 
of mud-coloured layers from the khaki uniforms of the 
stiff standing ranks of our men. A military band on the 
forward deck was playing the national anthems of France 
and America and every hand was being held at the salute. 

As the final bars of the "Star Spangled Banner" 
crashed out and every saluting hand came snappily down, 
one American soldier on an upper deck leaned over the 
rail and shouted to a comrade on the shore his part of 
the first exchange of greetings between our fighting 
men upon this historic occasion. Holding one hand to 
his lips, he seriously enquired : 

"Say, do they let the enlisted men in the saloons 
here?" 

Another soldier standing near the stern rail had a dif- 
ferent and more serious interrogation to make. He ap- 
peared rather blase about it as he leaned over the rail 




THE FIRST AMERICAN FOOT ON FRENCH SOIL 




THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 67 

and, directing his voice toward a soldier on the dock, 
casually demanded: 

"Say, where the Hell is all this trouble, anyhow ?" 

These two opening sorties produced a flood of others. 
The most common enquiry was : "What's the name of 
this place?" and "Is this France or England?" When 
answers were made to these questions, the recipients of 
the information, particularly if they happened to be "old- 
timers in the army," would respond by remarking, "Well, 
it's a damn sight better than the Mexican border." 

As our men came over the ship's side and down the 
runways, there was no great reception committee await- 
ing them. Among the most Interested spectators of the 
event were a group of stolid German prisoners of war 
and the two French soldiers guarding them. The two 
Frenchmen talked volubly with a wealth of gesticulation, 
while the Germans maintained their characteristic glum- 
ness. 

The German prisoners appeared to be anything but 
discouraged at the sight. Some of them even wore a 
smile that approached the supercilious. With some of 
them that smile seemed to say : "You can't fool us. We 
know these troops are not Americans. They are either 
Canadians or Australians coming from England. Our 
German U-boats won't let Americans cross the ocean." 

Some of those German prisoners happened to have 
been in America before the war. They spoke English 
and recognised the uniforms of our men. Their silent 
smiles seemed to say : "Well, they don't look so good at 
that. We have seen better soldiers. And, besides, there 
is only a handful of them. Not enough can come to 
make any difference. Anyhow, it is too late now. The 
war will be over before any appreciable number can get 
here." 



68 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

But the stream of khaki continued to pour out of the 
ship's side. Company after company of our men, loaded 
down with packs and full field equipment, lined up on 
the dock and marched past the group of German pris- 
oners. 

''We're passing in review for you, Fritzie," one irre- 
pressible from our ranks shouted, as the marching line 
passed within touching distance of the prisoner group. 
The Germans responded only with quizzical little smiles 
and silence. 

Escorted by our own military bands, the regiments 
marched throiigh the m.ain street of the village. The 
bands played "Dixie" — a new air to France. The regi- 
ments as a whole did not present the snappy, marching 
appearance that they might have presented. There was 
a good reason for this. Sixty per cent, of them were re- 
cruits. It had been wisely decided to replace many of 
the old regular army men in the ranks with newly en- 
listed men, so that these old veterans could remain in 
America and train the new drafts. 

However, that which impressed the French people was 
the individual appearance of these samples of American 
manhood. Our men were tall and broad and brawny. 
They were young and vigorous. Their eyes were keen 
and snappy. Their complexions ranged in shade from 
the swarthy sun-tanned cheeks of border veterans to the 
clear pink skins of city youngsters. But most noticeable 
of all to the French people were the even white rows of 
teeth which our men displayed when they smiled. Good 
dentistry and clean mouths are essentially American. 

The villagers of St. Nazaire, old men and women, 
girls and school children, lined the curbs as our men 
marched through the town. The line of march was over 
a broad esplanade that circled the sandy beach of the 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 69 

bay, and then wound upward into the higher ground 
back of the town. The road here was bordered on either 
side with ancient stone walls covered with vines and 
over the tops of the walls there extended fruit-laden 
branches to tempt our men with their ripe, red luscious- 
ness. As they marched through the heat and dust of 
that June day, many succumbed to the temptations and 
paid for their appetites with inordinately violent colics 
that night. 1 

A camp site had been partially prepared for their re- 
ception. It was located close to a French barracks. The 
French soldiers and gangs of German prisoners, who had 
been engaged in this work, had no knowledge of the 
fact that they were building the first American canton- 
ment in France. They thought they were constructing 
simply an extension of the French encampment. 

That first contingent, composed of United States In- 
fantrymen and Marines, made its first camp in France 
with the smallest amount of confusion, considering the 
fact that almost three-quarters of them hadn't been in 
uniform a month. It was but several hours after ar- 
riving at the camp that the smoke was rising from the 
busy camp stoves and the aroma of American coffee, 
baked beans and broiled steaks was in the air. 

On the afternoon of that first day some of the men 
were given permission to visit the town. They began to 
take their first lessons in French as they went from cafe 
to cafe in futile efforts to connect up with such unknown 
commodities as cherry pie or ham and egg sandwiches. 
Upon meeting one another in the streets, our men would 
invariably ask: *'Have you come across any of these 
FROGS that talk American?" 

There was nothing disrespectful about the terms Frogs 
or Froggies as applied to their French comrades in arms. 



70 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

American officers hastened to explain to French officers 
that the one piece of information concerning France most 
popularly known in America was that it was the place 
where people first learned to eat frog legs and snails. 

The Frenchmen, on the other hand, were somewhat 
inclined to believe that these first Americans didn't live 
up to the European expectations of Americans. Those 
European expectations had been founded almost entirely 
upon the translations of dime novels and moving picture 
thrillers of the Wild West and comedy variety. 

Although our men wore the high, broad-brimmed felt 
hats, they didn't seem sufficiently cowboyish. Although 
the French people waited expectantly, none of these 
Americans dashed through the main street of the village 
on bucking bronchos, holding their reins in their teeth 
and at the same time firing revolvers from either hand. 
Moreover, none of our men seemed to conclude their 
dinners in the expected American fashion of slapping 
one another in the face with custard pies. 

There was to be seen on the streets of St. Nazaire that 
day some representative black Americans, who had also 
landed in that historical first contingent. There was a 
strange thing about these negroes. 

It will be remembered that in the early stages of our 
participation in the war it had been found that there 
was hardly sufficient khaki cloth to provide uniforms for 
all of our soldiers. That had been the case with these 
American negro soldiers. 

But somewhere down in Washington, somehow or 
other, some one resurrected an old, large, heavy iron key 
and this, inserted into an ancient rusty lock, had opened 
some long forgotten doors in one of the Government 
arsenals. There were revealed old dust-covered bundles 
wrapped up in newspapers, yellow with age, and when 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 71 

these wrappings of the past were removed, there were 
seen the uniforms of old Union blue that had been laid 
away back in '65 — uniforms that had been worn by men 
who fought and bled and died to free the first black 
American citizens. 

And here on this foreign shore, on this day in June 
more than half a century later, the sons and the grand- 
sons of those same freed slaves wore those same uni- 
forms of Union blue as they landed in France to fight 
for a newer freedom. 

Some of these negroes were stevedores from the lower 
Mississippi levees. They sang as they worked in their 
white army undershirts, across the chest of which they 
had penciled in blue and red, strange mystic devices, re- 
ligious phrases and hoodoo signs, calculated to contribute 
the charm of safety to the running of the submarine 
blockade. 

Two of these American negroes, walking up the main 
street of St. Nazaire, saw on the other side of the thor- 
oughfare a brother of colour wearing the lighter blue 
uniform of a French soldier. This French negro was 
a Colonial black from the north of Africa and of course 
had spoken nothing but French from the day he was born. 

One of the American negroes crossed the street and 
accosted him. 

"Looka here, boy," he enquired good-naturedly, "what 
can you all tell me about this here wah?" 

"Comment, monsieur ?" responded the non-understand- 
ing French black, and followed the rejoinder with a tor- 
rent of excited French. 

The American negro's mouth fell open. For a minute 
he looked startled, and then he bulged one large round 
white eye suspiciously at the French black, while he in- 
wardly debated on the possibility that he had become 



72 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

suddenly colour blind. Having reassured himself, how- 
ever, that his vision was not at fault, he made a sudden 
decision and started on a new tack. 

''Now, never mind that high-faluting language,'' he 
said. *'You all just tell me what you know about this 
here wah and quit you' putting on aihs." 

The puzzled French negro could only reply with an- 
other explosion of French interrogations, coupled with 
vigorous gesticulations. The American negro tried to 
talk at the same time and both of them endeavouring 
to make the other understand, increased the volumes of 
their tones until they were standing there waving their 
arms and shouting into one another's faces. The Amer- 
ican negro gave it up. 

"My Gawd," he said, shaking his head as he recrossed 
the street and joined his comrades, "this is shore some 
funny country. They got the mos' ignorantest niggers 
I ever saw." 

Still, those American blacks were not alone in their 
difficulties over the difference in languages. I discussed 
the matter with one of our white regulars who professed 
great experience, having spent almost one entire day on 
mutual guard with a French sentry over a pile of bag- 
gage. 

"You know," he said, "I don't believe these Frenchies 
ever will learn to speak English." 

Our veterans from Mexico and the border campaigns 
found that their smattering of Spanish did not help them 
much. But still every one seemed to manage to get along 
all right. Our soldiers and the French soldiers in those 
early days couldn't understand each other's languages, 
but they could understand each other. 

This strange paradox was analysed for me by a young 
American Lieutenant who said he had made a twelve- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 73 

hour study of the remarkable camaraderie that had im- 
mediately sprung up between the fighting men of France 
and the fighting men of America. In explaining this re- 
lationship, he said: 

"You see, we think the French are crazy,'' he said, 
"and the French know damn well we are." 

Those of our men who had not brought small French 
and English dictionaries with them, made hurried pur- 
chases of such handy articles and forthwith began to 
practise. The French people did likewise. 

I saw one young American infantryman seated at a 
table in front of one of the sidewalk cafes on the village 
square. He was dividing his attention between a fervent 
admiration of the pretly French waitress, who stood 
smiling in front of him, and an intense interest in the 
pages of his small hand dictionary. 

She had brought his glass of beer and he had paid for 
it, but there seemed to be a mutual urge for further con- 
versation. The American would look first at her and 
then he would look through the pages of the book again. 
Finally he gave slow and painful enunciation of the fol- 
lowing request: 

"Mad-am-moy-sell, donnie moy oon baysa.*' 

She laughed prettily as she caught his meaning almost 
immediately, and she replied : 

"Doughboy, ware do you get zat stuff?" 

"Aw, Hell," said the young Infantryman, as he closed 
the book with a snap. "I knew they'd let those sailors 
ashore before us." 

From the very first day of the landing we began to 
learn things from the French and they began to learn 
things from us. Some of our men learned that it was 
quite possible to sip an occasional glass of beer or light 



74 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

wine without feeling a sudden inclination to buy and 
consume all there remained in the cafe. 

The French soldiers were intensely interested in the 
equipment of our land forces and in the uniforms of 
both our soldiers and sailors. They sought by questions 
to get an understanding of the various insignia by which 
the Americans designated their rank. 

One thing that they noticed was a small, round white 
pasteboard tag suspended on a yellow cord from the 
upper left hand breast pocket of either the blue jackets 
of our sailors or the khaki shirts of our soldiers. So 
prevalent was this tag, which in reality marked the 
wearer as the owner of a package of popular tobacco, 
that the French almost accepted it as uniform equipment, 

The attitude of our first arriving American soldiers 
toward the German prisoners who worked in gangs on' 
construction work in the camps and rough labour along, 
the docks was a curious one. Not having yet encoun- 
tered in battle the brothers of these same docile appear- 
ing captives, our men were even inclined to treat th( 
prisoners with deference almost approaching admiration. 

In a measure, the Germans returned this feeling. The 
arrival of the Americans was really cheering to them. 
The prisoners disliked the French because they had beei 
taught to do so from childhood. They hated the Eng- 
lish because that was the hate with which they went intc 
battle. 

It sounds incongruous now but, nevertheless, it was 
a fact then that the German prisoners confined at that first 
American sea-base really seemed to like the American 
soldiers. Maybe it was because any change of masters 
or guards was a relief in the uneventful existence which 
had been theirs since the day of their capture. Perhaps 
the feeling was one of distinct kindred, based on a fa- 



fl 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 75 



miliarity with Americans and American customs — a fa- 
miliarity which had been produced by thousands of let- 
ters which Germans in America had written to their 
friends in Germany before the war. On the other hand, 
it may simply have been by reason of America's official 
disavowal of any animosity toward the German people. 

One day I watched some of those prisoners unloading 
supplies at one of the docks in St. Nazaire, more or less 
under the eyes of an American sentry who stood nearby. 
One group of four Germans were engaged in carrying 
what appeared to be a large wooden packing case. Cas- 
ually, and as if by accident, the case was dropped to the 
ground and cracked. 

Instantly one of the prisoners' hands began to fur- 
tively investigate the packages revealed by the break. 
The other prisoners busied themselves as if preparing to 
lift the box again. The first German pulled a spoon from 
his bootleg, plunged it into the crevice in the broken box 
and withdrew it heaped with granulated sugar. With 
a quick movement he conveyed the stolen sweet to his 
mouth and that gapping orifice closed quickly on the 
sugar, while his stoical face immediately assumed its 
characteristic downcast look. He didn't dare move his 
lips or jaws for fear of detection. 

Of course these Germans had been receiving but a 
scant ration of sugar, but their lot had been no worse 
than that of the French soldiers guarding them pre- 
viously, who got no sugar either. American soldiers 
then guarding those prisoners reported only a few of 
them for confinement for these human thefts. 

Surreptitiously, the American guards would sometimes 
leave cigarettes where the prisoners could get them, and 
even though the action did violate the rules of discipline, 
it helped to develop further the human side of the giver 



76 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and the recipient and at the same time had the result of 
making the prisoners do more work for their new 
guards. 

It should be specially stated that lenience could not 
and was not extended to the point of fraternisation. But 
the relationship that seemed to exist between the Ger- 
man prisoners and American soldiers at that early date 
revealed undeniably the absence of any mutual hate. 

Around one packing case on the dock I saw, one day, 
a number of German prisoners who were engaged in un- 
packing bundles from America, and passing them down 
a line of waiting hands that relayed them to a freight car. 
One of the Germans leaning over the case straightened 
up with a rumpled newspaper in his hand. He had re- 
moved it from a package. A look of indescribable joy 
came across his face. 

''Deutscher, Deutscher,'* he cried, pointing to the 
Gothic type. The paper was a copy of the New York 
Staats-Zeitung. 

The lot of those prisoners was not an unhappy one. 
To me it seemed very doubtful whether even a small 
percentage of them would have accepted liberty if it 
carried with it the necessity of returning to German 
trenches. 

Those men knew what war was. They had crossed 
No Man's Land. Now they were far back from the 
blazing front in a comparatively peaceful country be- 
yond the sound of the guns. If their lot at that time was 
to be characterised as "war," then in the opinion of 
those Germans, war was not what Sherman said it was. 

Their attitude more resembled that of the unkissed 
spinster who was taken captive when the invading army 
captured the town. She flung herself into the arms of 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 77 , 

the surprised commander of the invaders and smilingly 
whispered, "War is war." 

The German prison camps at St. Nazaire were in- 
spected by General Pershing on the third day of the 
American landing when he, with his staff, arrived from 
Paris. The General and his party arrived early in the 
morning in a pouring rain. The American commander- 
in-chief then held the rank of a Major General. In the 
harbour was the flagship of Rear Admiral Gleaves. 

There was no delay over the niceties of etiquette when 
the question arose as to whether the Rear Admiral should 
call on the Major General or the Major General should 
call on the Rear Admiral. 

The Major General settled the subject with a sentence. 
He said, 'The point is that I want to see him," and with 
no further ado about it General Pershing and his staff 
visited the Admiral on his flagship. After his inspection 
of our first contingent, General Pershing said : 

"This is the happiest day of the busy days which I 
have spent in France preparing for the arrival of the 
first contingent. To-day I have seen our troops safe on 
French soil, landing from transports that were guarded 
in their passage overseas by the resourceful vigilance of 
our Navy. 

"Now, our task as soldiers lies before us. We hope, 
with the aid of the French leaders and experts who have 
placed all the results of their experience at our disposal, 
to make our forces worthy in skill and in determination, 
to fight side by side in arms with the armies of France.'* 



AND THEY THOUGHT 



CHAPTER IV 

THROUGH THE SCHOOL OF WAR 

Clip the skyline from the Blue Ridge, arch it over with 
arboreal vistas from the forests of the Oregon, reflect 
the two in the placid waters of the Wisconsin — and you 
will have some conception of the perfect Eden of beauty 
in which the first contingent of the American Expedi- 
tionary Forces trained in France. 

Beckoning white roads curl through the rolling hills 
like ribbons of dental cream squeezed out evenly on rich 
green velour. Chateaux, pearl white centres in settings 
of emerald green, push their turrets and bastions above 
the mossy plush of the mountain side. Lazy little 
streams silver the valleys with their aimless wanderings. 

It was a peaceful looking garden of pastoral delight"^ 
that United States soldiers had picked out for their mar- 
tial training ground. It was a section whose physical 
appearance was untouched by the three years of red riot 
and roar that still rumbled away just a few miles to the 
north. 

The training area was located in the Vosges, in east 
central France. By train, it was a nine-hour day trip 
from Paris. It was located about an hour's motor ride 
behind the front lines, which at that time were close to 
the north of the cities of Nancy and Toul. 

The 'troops were billeted in a string of small villages 
that comprised one side of the letter V. French troops 
and instructing officers occupied the other converging 
line of the letter. Between the two lines was the area in 
which our men trained. Where the two lines converged 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 79 

was the town of Gondercourt, the headquarters of Major 
General Seibert, the Commander of the first American 
division in France. 

The area had long since been stripped of male civilian 
population that could be utilised for the French ranks. 
The war had taken the men and the boys, but had left 
the old people and children to till the fields, tend the 
cattle, prune the hedges and trim the roads. 

With the advent of our troops, the restful scene began 
to change. Treeless ridges carpeted w^Ith just enough 
green to veil the rocky formation of the ground began to 
break out with a superficial rash of the colour of fresh 
earth. In rows and circles, by angles and zigzags, the 
training trenches began to take form daily under the pick 
and shovel exercises of French and Americans working 
side by side. 

Along the white roads, clay-coloured rectangles that 
moved evenly, like brown caravans, represented the 
marching units of United States troops. The columns 
of bluish-grey that passed them wnth shorter, quicker 
steps, were companies of those tireless Frenchmen, who 
after almost three years of the front Hne real thing, now 
played at a mimic war of make-believe, with taller and 
heavier novitiates. 

Those French troops were Alpine Chasseurs — the fa- 
mous Blue Devils. They wore dark blue caps, w^hich 
resemble tam o'shanters, but are not. They were proud 
of the distinction which their uniform gave them. They 
were proud of their great fighting records. One single 
battalion of them boasted that of the twenty-six officers 
who led it into the first fight at the opening of the war, 
only four of them existed. 

It w^as a great advantage for our men to train under 
such instructors. Correspondents who had been along 



8o "AND THEY THOUGHT 

the fronts before America's entry into the war, had a 
great respect for the soldierly capacity of these same fight- 
ing Frenchmen; not only these sturdy young sons of 
France who wore the uniform, but the older French sol- 
diers — ranging in age from forty to fifty-five years — 
who had been away to the fronts since the very beginning 
of the war. 

We had seen them many, many times. Miles upon 
miles of them, in the motor trucks along the roads. 
Twenty of them rode in each truck. They sat on two 
side benches facing the centre of the trucks. They were 
men actually bent forward from the weight of the martial 
equipment strapped to their bodies. They seemed to 
carry inordinate loads — ^knapsacks, blanket roll, spare 
shoes, haversacks, gas masks, water bottles, ammunition 
belts, grenade aprons, rifle, bayonet and helmet. 

Many of them were very old men. They had thick 
black eyebrows and wore long black beards. They were 
tired, weary men. We had seen them iji the camions, 
each man resting his head on the shoulder of the man 
seated beside him. The dust of the journey turned their 
black beards grey. On the front seat of the camion a 
sleepless one handled the wheel, while beside him the 
relief driver slept on the seat. 

Thus they had been seen, mile upon mile of them, 
thousand upon thousand of them, moving ever up and 
down those roads that paralleled the six hundred and 
fifty miles of front from Flanders to the Alps — moving 
always. Thus they had been seen night and day, winter 
and summer, for more than three long years, always 
trying to be at the place where the enemy struck. Thei 
world knows and the world is thankful that they always; 
were there. 

It was under such veteran instructors as these that 



I 



I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 81 

our first Americans in France trained, there, in the 
Vosges, in a garden spot of beauty, in the province that 
boasts the birthplace of Jeanne d'Arc. On the few leave 
days, many of our men, with permission, would absent 
themselves from camp, and make short pilgrimages over 
the hills to the little town of Domremy to visit the house 
in which the Maid of Orleans was born. 

Our men were eager to learn. I observed them daily 
at their training tasks. One day when they had pro- 
gressed as far as the use of the New French automatic 
rifles, I visited one of the ranges to witness the firing. 

Just under the crest of the hill was a row of rifle pits, 
four feet deep in the slaty white rock. On the opposite 
hill, across the marshy hollow, at a distance of two hun- 
dred yards, was a line of wooden targets, painted white 
with black circles. Poised at intervals on the forward 
edge of the pits were a number of automatic rifles of the 
type used by the French army. An American soldier 
and a French soldier attended each one, the former in 
^ the firing position and the latter instructing. 

The rear bank of the pits was lined with French and 
American officers. The order, "Commence firing," was 
given, and white spurts of rock dust began dancing on 
the opposite hill, while splinters began to fly from some 
of the wooden targets. 

At one end of the firing trench a raw American re- 
cruit, who admitted that he had never handled an auto- 
matic rifle before, flushed to his hat-brim and gritted his 
teeth viciously as his shots, registering ten feet above 
the targets, brought forth laughter and exclamations 
from the French soldiers nearby. He rested on his gun 
long enough to ask an interpreter what the Frenchmen 
were talking about. 



82 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"They say," the interpreter repHed, ''that you belong 
to the anti-aircraft service." 

The recruit tightened his grip on his rifle and lowered 
his aim with better results. At the end of his first fifty 
shots he was placing one in three on the target and the 
others were registering close in. 

"Bravo !" came from a group of French officers at the 
other end of the trench, where another American, older 
in the service, had signalised his first experiences with the 
new firearm by landing thirty targets out of thirty-four 
shots, and four of the targets were bull's-eyes. The 
French instructors complimented him on the excellence 
of his marksmanship, considering his acknowledged un- 
familiarity with the weapon. 

Further along the depression, in another set of op- 
posing trenches and targets, a row of French machine 
guns manned by young Americans, sprayed lead with 
ear-splitting abandon, sometimes reaching the rate of five 
hundred shots a minute. Even with such rapidity, the 
Americans encountered no difficulties with the new pieces. 

French veterans, who for three years had been using 
those same guns against German targets, hovered over 
each piece, explaining in half French and half English, 
and answering in the same mixture questions on ways 
and means of getting the best results from the weapons. 

Here a chasseur of the ranks would stop the firing of 
one American squad, with a peremptory, "Regardez." 
He would proceed with pantomime and more or less con- 
nected words, carrying the warning that firing in such a 
manner would result in jamming the guns, a condition 
which would be fatal in case the targets in the other 
trenches were charging upon the guns. 

Then he showed the correct procedure, and the Yanks, 
watchfully alert to his every move, changed their method 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 83 

and signified their pleasure with the expression of "Trays 
beans," and ''Mercy's." 

*'Do you think it would have resulted in a quicker and 
possibly more understanding training if these Americans 
were instructed by British veterans instead of French?" 
I asked an American Staff OfBcer, who was observing 
the demonstration. 

"I may have thought so at first," the officer replied, 
*'but not now. The explanations which our men in the 
ranks are receiving from the French soldiers in the ranks 
are more than word instructions. They are object les- 
sons in which gesticulation and pantomime are used to 
act out the movement or subject under discussion. 

"The French are great actors, and I find that Ameri- 
can soldiers unacquainted with the French language are 
able to understand the French soldiers who are unac- 
quainted with the English language much better than 
the American officers, similarly handicapped, can under- 
stand the French officers. 

'T should say that some time would be lost if all of 
our troops were to be trained by French soldiers, but I 
believe that this division under French tutelage will be 
better able to teach the new tactics to the new divisions 
that are to follow than it would be if it had speedily 
passed through training camps like the British system, 
for instance, where it must be taken for granted that 
verbal, instead of actual, instruction is the means of pro- 
ducing a speeding up of training." 

Thus it was that our first American contingent in 
France was in training for something more than service 
on the line. It rapidly qualified into an expert corps 
from which large numbers of capable American in- 
structors were later withdrawn and used for the training 
of our millions of men that followed. 



84 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

This achievement was only accomplished by the exer- 
cise of strict disciplinarian measures by every American 
officer in the then small expedition. One day, in the early 
part of August, 191 7, a whirlwind swept through the 
string of French villages where the first contingent was 
training. 

The whirlwind came down the main road in a cloud of 
dust. It sped on the fleeting tires of a high-powered 
motor which flew from its dust-grey hood a red flag 
with two white stars. It blew into the villages and out, 
through the billets and cook tents, mess halls, and picket 
lines. The whirlwind was John J. Pershing. 

The commander-in-chief "hit" the training area early 
in the morning and his coming was unannounced. Be- 
fore evening he had completed a stem inspection which 
had left only one impression in the minds of the in- 
spected, and that impression was to the effect that more 
snap and pep, more sharpness and keenness were needed. 

At the conclusion of the inspection all of the officers 
of the contingent were agreeing that the whirlwind visi- 
tation was just what had been needed to arouse the mettle 
and spirit in an organisation comprised of over fifty per 
cent, raw recruits. Many of the officers themselves had 
been included in the pointed criticisms which the com- 
mander directed against the persons and things that met 
disfavour in his eyes. 

The night following that inspection or "raid," as it 
was called, it would have been safe to say that nowhere 
in the area was there a recruit who did not know, in a 
manner that he would not forget, the correct position of 
a soldier — the precise, stiff, snappy attitude to be pre- 
sented when called to attention. The enlisted men whose 
heels did not click when they met, whose shoulders 
slouched, whose chins missed the proper angle, whose 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 85 

eyes were not "front'* during the inspection, underwent 
embarrassing penalties, calculated to make them remem- 
ber. 

**Have this man fall out," General Pershing directed, 
as he stood before a recruit whose attitude appeared 
sloppy; "teach him the position of a soldier and have 
him stand at attention for five minutes/* 

One company which had prided itself upon having 
some of the best embryonic bomb-throwers in the con- 
tingent, contributed a number of victims to the above 
penalties, and as the General's train of automobiles 
swirled out of the village, the main street seemed to be 
dotted with silent khaki-clad statues doing their five min- 
ute sentences of rigidity. 

"What about your men's shoes?" General Persbing 
asked a captain sharply, while he directed his eyes along 
a company line of feet whose casings seemed to be ap- 
proaching the shabby. 

"We need hobnails, sir," replied the captain. 

"Get them" — the words snapped out from beneath 
Pershing's close-cropped grey moustache. "Requisition 
hobnails. Your men need them. Get them from the 
quartermaster." 

The American commander stepped into the darkness 
of a large stone- walled stable, which represented the 
billeting accommodations for ten American soldiers. A 
dog curled in the doorway growled and showed its teeth. 
The General stepped past the menacing animal, and with- 
out heeding its snarls close to his heels, started question- 
ing the sergeants in charge. 

"Are any cattle kept in here?" he asked. 

"No, sir," replied the sergeant. 

"Detail more men with brooms and have it aired thor- 
oughly every day." 



86 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

Observed from a distance, when he was speaking with 
battaHon and regimental commanders, the commander 
manifested no change of attitude from that which marked 
his whole inspection. He frequently employed his char- 
acteristic gesture of emphasis — the wadding of his left 
palm with his right fist or the energetic opening and 
closing of the right hand. When the Pershing whirlwind 
sped out of the training area that night, after the first 
American inspection in France, it left behind it a thor- 
ough realisation of the sternness of the work which was 
ahead of our army. 

The development of a rigid discipline was the Amer- 
ican commander's first objective in the training schedules 
which he ordered his staff to devise. After this schedule 
had been in operation not ten days, I happened to witness 
a demonstration of American discipline which might be 
compared to an improved incident of Damocles dining 
under the suspended sword at the feast of Dionysius. 

A battalion of American Infantry was at practice on 
one of the training fields. The grenade-throwing exer- 
cises had been concluded and the order had been given to 
"fall in" preparatory to the march back to the camp. 

Upon the formation of the long company lines, end 
on end down the side of the hill, the order, "attention," 
was sharply shouted bringing the men to the rigid pose 
which permits the eyes to wander neither to the right nor 
to the left, above nor below, but straightforward. 

As the thousand men stood there, rigid and silent, a 
sudden disturbance took place in the sky above them. 
Shells began exploding up there. At the same time the 
men in the ranks could distinctly hear the whirr and the 
hum of aeroplane motors above them. 

Almost every day reports had been received that Ger- 
man planes had evaded the Allied aerial patrols along 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 87 

the front and had made long flights behind our lines for 
the dual purposes of observing and bombing. 

As the American battalion stood stiff and motionless, 
I knew that the thought was passing through the minds 
of every man there that here, at last, was the expected 
visitation of the German flyers and that a terrific bomb 
from above would be the next event on the programme. 
The men recognised the reports of the anti-aircraft guns 
blazing away, and the sound of the motors suggested a 
close range target. 

The sound seemed to indicate that the planes were 
flying low. The American ranks knew that something 
was going on immediately above them. They did not 
know what it was, but it seems needless to state that they 
wanted to know. Still the ranks stood as stiff as rows 
of clay-coloured statues. 

An almost irresistible impulse to look upward, a strong 
instinctive urging to see the danger that impended, and 
the stern regulations of "eyes front" that goes with the 
command ''attention," comprised the elements of con- 
flict that went on in each of the thousand heads in that 
battalion line. 

In front of each platoon, the lieutenants and captains 
stood with the same rigid eyes front facing the men. If 
one of the company officers had relaxed to the extent 
of taking one fleeting upward glance, it is doubtful 
whether the men could have further resisted the same 
inclination, but not a man shifted his gaze from the 
direction prescribed by the last command. 

One plane passed closely overhead and nothing hap- 
pened. Three more followed and still no bombs fell, and 
then the tense incident was closed by the calling out of 
the order of the march and, in squads of four, the bat- 
talion wheeled into the road and marched back to billets. 



88 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

As one company went by singing (talking was per- 
mitted upon the freedom of routstep), I heard one of 
the men say that he had thought all along that the officers 
would not have made them stand there at attention if 
the danger had not been over. 

"As far as I knew, it was over," a comrade added. 
'*It was right over my head." And in this light man- 
ner the men forgot the incident as they resumed their 
marching song. 

When Mr. W. Hollenzollern of Potsdam put singmg 
lessons in the curriculum of his soldiers' training, a 
tremor of military giggling was heard around the world. 
But in August, 191 4, when Mars smiled at the sight of 
those same soldiers, marching across the frontiers east, 
south and west, under their throaty barrage of "Deutsch- 
land, Deutschland, tJber Alles," the derisive giggles com- 
pletely died out. It immediately became a case of he 
who laughs first, lives to yodel. 

The American forces then in training took advantage 
of this. They not only began to sing as they trained, 
but they actually began to be trained to sing. Numerous 
company commanders who had held strong opinions 
against this vocal soldiering, changed their minds and 
expressed the new found conviction that the day was 
past when singing armies could be compared solely with 
male coryphees who hold positions well down stage and 
clink empty flagons of brown October ale. 

''It's a great idea," a company commander told me. 
"We learned it from the Blue Devils. They are the 
toughest set of under-sized gentry that I have run into 
in France. They have forearms as big as three-inch 
shells, and as hard. Their favourite pastime is juggling 
hand-grenades that can't possibly explode unless they 
just lightly touch one another. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 89 

"Yesterday we watched them, bared to the waist, as 
they went through three hours of grenade and bombing 
practice that was the last word in strenuosity. Keeping 
up with their exercises was hard work for our men, 
whose arms soon began to ache from the unaccustomed, 
overhand heaving. 

"Then we watched them as their commander assembled 
them for the march back to the village. At the com- 
mand, 'attention,' their heels clicked, their heads went 
back, their chins up and their right hands were pasted 
rigidly against their right trouser leg. 

"At the command 'march' all of them started off, 
punctuating their first step with the first word of their 
marching song. It was not any sickly chorus either. 
There was plenty of beef and lung power behind every 
note. My men lined up opposite were not missing a bit 
of it. Most of them seemed to know what was ex- 
pected when I said: 

" 'On the command of "march," the company will be- 
gin to sing, keeping step with the song. The first ser- 
geant will announce the song.' 

"My first sergeant responded without a change of 
colour as if the command to sing had been an old regu- 
lation. I knew that he was puzzled, but he did it well. 
The name of the song chosen was passed down the line 
from man to man. 

"When I gave the command to march, the company, 
almost half of them new recruits, wheeled in squads of 
fours, and started off down the road singing, 'Hail, Hail, 
the Gang's All Here.' There were some who were kind 
of weak on the effort, but there was a noticeable cres- 
cendo when the sergeant passed the word down the squad 
that the company would be kept marching until every- 
body had joined in the singing. 



90 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

*'We swung into camp that night with every voice 
raising lustily on 'One Grasshopper Hopped Right Over 
Another Grasshopper's Back,' and after dinner the billets 
just sprouted melody, everything from ragtime to Christ- 
mas carols and baby lullabies." 

One noticeable characteristic about our soldiers during 
that training period before they had come in contact with 
the enemy, was a total absence of violent antipathy to- 
ward all persons and things Teutonic. M 

On the march the men then sang ''We'll Hang the^ 
Damned Old Kaiser to a Sour Apple Tree," but at that 
time I never heard any parodies on the "Gott Straffe 
Germany" theme. Our soldiers were of so many dif- 
ferent nationalistic extractions and they had been thrown 
together for so short a time, that as yet no especial ha- 
tred of the enemy had developed. 

An illustration of this very subject and also the man-* 
ner in which our boys got along with the civilian popu- 1| 
lations of the towns they occupied came to my notice. 

A driving rain which filled the valley with mist and 
made the hills look like mountain tops projecting above 
the clouds, had resulted in the abandonment of the usual 
daily drills. The men had spent the day in billets writing; 
letters home, hearing indoor lectures from instructors,! 
playing with the French children in the cottage door- 
ways, or taking lessons in French from the peasant girls, 
whose eyes were inspirations to the dullest pupils. 

I spent several hours in a company commander's quar- 
ters while he censored letters which the men had sub- 
mitted for transmission back home. The Captain looked 
long at a letter in his hand, smiled and called for his 
orderly. 

"Tell Private Blank I want to see him here right 
away," were the Captain's instructions. Blank's name 



( 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT- 91 

was not quite so German as Sourkraut, but it had a 
"berger" ending that was reminiscent of beer, pretzels 
and wooden shoes. 

''Here's a letter written in German," said the Captain 
to me, referring to the open missive. "It's addressed to 
somebody by the same name as Blank, and I presume 
it is to some one in his family. Blank is one of the 
best men in my company, and I know that the letter is 
harmless, but it is impossible for me to pass it when 
written in an enemy language." 

The door opened and a tall, blonde enlisted man 
stepped in, shaking the rain from his hat. He stood at 
respectful attention, saluted and said: 

''Did the Captain wish to see me?" 

"Yes, Blank, it is about this letter written in Ger- 
man," the Captain replied. "Who is it addressed to?" 

"My father, in Cincinnati, sir," Blank replied. 

"I am unfamiliar with German," the Captain said. "I 
notice the letter is brief. Is there anything in it which 
the company has been ordered to omit mentioning?" 

"No, sir," Blank replied. 

"Will you translate it for me?" the Captain asked. 

"Yes, sir," said Blank, with just a bare suggestion of a 
blush. Then he read as follows : 

"Dear Father : I am in good health. Food is good 
and we are learning much. I am becoming an expert 
grenadier. In this village where we are billeted tliere 
is a French girl named Germain. Before the war she 
lived in northern France, near the German frontier, and 
she speaks German. So it is possible for us to talk 
together. She fled before the German troops reached 
her village. She lives here now with her aunt. 

"I carry water from a well for her and she has given 



92 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

me each day a roll of fresh made butter for our mess. 
In the evening we sit on the front seat of her uncle's 
small carriage, which is in the front yard, and we imagine 
we are taking a drive, but of course there are no horses. 
Her uncle's horses were taken by the army a long time 
ago. She is very anxious to know all about America, 
and I have told her all about you and mother and our 
home in Cincinnati. 

"She asked me what I am going to-do after the war, 
and I told her that I would return to Cincinnati to help 
you at the store. She cried because she said she did not 
know where she was going after the war. Her father 
and two brothers have been killed and her aunt and 
uncle are very old. 

"I have some more to write to you about Germain 
later. But must stop here because the Sergeants are as- 
sembling the men for indoor instruction. Love to all. 
It is raining very hard. Your son, " 

Blank's face seemed to redden as he hesitated over a 
postscript line at the bottom of the page. 

'This is nothing," he said. "I just asked father to 
ask mother to send me one of the photographs I had 
taken on the day I enlisted." 

"For Germain?" the Captain enquired, smilingly. 

"Yes, sir," replied Blank. 

"Why didn't you write this in English?" the Captain 
asked. 

"My father reads only German," Blank replied. 

Blank was instructed to rewrite his letter in English 
and address it to some friend who could translate it into 
German for his father. As the door closed on this 
American soldier of German extraction, I asked the Cap- 
tain, "Do you think Germain could stand for Blank's 



I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 93 

German name, after all she has lost at the hands of the 
Germans?" 

''She'll probably be wearing it proudly around Cin- 
cinnati within a vear after the war is over," the Captain 
replied. 

It might be reassuring at this point to remark that 
girls in America really have no occasion to fear that 
many of our soldiers will leave their hearts in France. 
The French women are kind to them, help them in their 
French lessons, and frequently feed them with home 
delicacies unknown to the company mess stoves, but 
every American soldier overseas seems to have that per- 
fectly natural hankering to come back to the girls he 
left behind. 

The soldier mail addressed daily to mothers and sweet- 
hearts back in the States ran far into the tons. The 
men were really homesick for their American women 
folks. I was aware of this even before I witnessed the 
/eception given by our men to the first American nurses 
to reach the other side. 

The hospital unit to which they belonged had been 
transported into that training area so quickly and so 
secretly that its presence there was unknown for some 
time. I happened to locate it by chance. 

Several of us correspondents seeking a change of diet 
from the monotonous menu provided by the hard-work- 
ing madam of our modest hostelry, motored in a new di- 
rection, over roads that opened new vistas in this pic- 
ture book of the world. 

Long straight avenues of towering trees whose foliage 
roofed the roadways were sufficient to reanimate recol- 
lections of old masters of brush realism. Ploughed fields 
veiled with the low-hanging mist of evening time, and 
distant steeples of homely simplicity faintly glazed by 



I 



94 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

the last rays of the setting sun, reproduced the tones of 
"The Angelus" with the over-generous hugeness of na- 
ture. 

And there in that prettiest of French watering places 
— Vittel — we came upon those first American nurses at- 
tached to the American Expeditionary Forces. They 
told us that all they knew was the name of the place 
they were in, that they were without maps and were ■ 
not even aware of what part of France they were lo-f 
cated in. 

It developed that the unit's motor transportation had 
not arrived and, other automobiles being as scarce as 
German flags, communication with the nearby camps had | 
been almost non-existent. Orders had been received ' 
from field headquarters and acknowledged, but its rela- 
tion in distance or direction to their whereabouts were j 
shrouded in mystery. But not for long. 

Soon the word spread through the training area that 
American nurses had a hospital in the same zone and 
some of the homesick Yanks began to make threats of 
self -mutilation in order that they might be sent to that 
hospital. 

The hospital unit was soon followed by the arrival of 
numerous American auxiliary organisations and the 
kindly activities of the workers as well as their numbers 
became such as to cause the men to wonder what kind 
of a war they were in. 

I happened to meet an old top sergeant of the regular 
army, a man I had known in Mexico, with the American 
Punitive Expedition. He had just received a large bun- 
dle of newspapers from home and he was bringing him- 
self up-to-date on the news. I asked him what was 
happening back home. 

"Great things are going on in the States," he said, 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 95 

looking up from his papers. "Here's one story in the 
newspaper that says the Y. M. C. A. is sending over five 
hundred secretaries to tell us jokes and funny stories. 
And here's another account about the Red Cross donating 
half a million dollars to build recreation booths for us 
along the front. And here's a story about a New York 
actor getting a committee of entertainers together to 
corrie over and sing and dance for us. And down in 
Philadelphia they're talking about collecting a million 
dollars to build tabernacles along the front so's Billy 
Sunday can preach to us. What I'm wondering about 
is, when in hell they're going to send the army over." 

But that was in the early fall of 19 17, and as I write 
these lines now, in the last days of 19 18, I am aware 
and so is the world, that in all of France nobody will 
ever ask that question again. 

That army got there. 



96 "AND THEY THOUGHT 
CHAPTER V 

MAKING THE MEN WHO MAN THE GUNS 

While our infantry perfected their training in the 
Vosges, the first American artillery in France undertook 
a schedule of studies in an old French artillery post lo- 
cated near the Swiss frontier. This place is called Val- 
dahon, and for scores of years had been one of the train- 
ing places for French artillery. But during the third 
and fourth years of the war nearly all of the French ar- 
tillery units being on the front, all subsequent drafts -of 
French artillerymen received their training under actual 
war conditions. 

So it was that the French war department turned over 
to the Americans this artillery training ground which 
had been long vacant. Three American artillery regi- 
ments, the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh, comprising the first 
U. S. Artillery Brigade, began training at this post. 

The barracks had been long unoccupied and much 
preparatory work was necessary before our artillerymen 
could move in. Much of this work devolved upon the 
shoulders of the Brigade Quartermaster. 

The first difficulty that, he encountered was the mat- 
ter of illumination for the barracks, mess halls and 
lecture rooms. All of the buildings were wired, but 
there was no current. The Quartermaster began an in- 
vestigation and this was what he found : 

The post had been supplied with electricity from a 
generating plant located on a river about ten miles away. 
This plant had supplied electrical energy for fifteen 
small French towns located in the vicinity. The plant 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 97 

was owned and operated by a Frenchman, who was 
about forty years old. The French Government, real- 
ising the necessity for illumination, had exempted this 
man from military service, so that he remained at his 
plant and kept the same in operation for the benefit of 
the camp at Valdahon and the fifteen small towns nearby. 

Then the gossips of the countryside got busy. These 
people began to say that Monsieur X, the operator of the 
plant,, was not patriotic, in other words, that he was a 
slacker for not being at the front when all of their 
menfolk had been sent away to the war. 

Now it so happened that Monsieur X was not a 
slacker, and his inclination had always been to get into 
the fight with the Germans, but the Government had rep- 
resented to him that it was his greater duty to remain 
and keep his plant in operation to provide light for the 
countryside. 

When the talk of the countryside reached Monsieur 
X's ears, he being a country-loving Frenchman was in- 
furiated. He denounced the gossips as being unappre- 
ciative of the great sacrifice he had been making for their 
benefit, and, to make them realise it, he decided on pen- 
alising them. 

Monsieur X simply closed down his plant, locked and 
barred the doors and windows, donned his French uni- 
form and went away to the front tO' join his old regi- 
ment. That night those villagers in the fifteen nearby 
towns, who had been using electrical illumination, went 
to bed in the dark. 

It required considerable research on the part of the 
Artillery Quartermaster to reveal all these facts. The 
electric lights had been unused for fifteen months when 
he arrived there, and he started to see what he could 
do to put the plant back to work. It required nothing 



98 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

less finally than a special action by the French Minister 
of War whereby orders were received by Monsieur X 
commanding him to leave his regiment at the front and 
go back to his plant by the riverside and start making 
electricity again. 

With the lights on and water piped in for bathing 
facilities, and extensive arrangements made for the in- 
stalment of stoves and other heating apparatus, the pur- 
chase of wood fuel and fodder for the animals, the 
Brigade moved in and occupied the camp. 

The American officer in command of that post went 
there as a Brigadier General. As I observed him at his 
work in those early days, I seemed to see in his appear- 
ance and disposition some of the characteristics of a 
Grant. He wore a stubby-pointed beard and he clamped 
his teeth tight on the butt end of a cigar. I saw him 
frequently wearing the $11.50 regulation issue uniform 
of the enlisted men. I saw him frequently in rubber 
boots standing hip deep in the mud of the gun pits, 
talking to the men like a father — a kindly, yet stern 
father who knew how to produce discipline and re- 
sults. 

While at the post, he won promotion to a Major 
General's rank, and in less than six months he was ele- 
vated to the grade of a full General and was given the 
highest ranking military post in the United States. That 
man who trained our first artillerymen in France was 
General Peyton C. March, Chief of Staff of the United 
States Army. 

Finding the right man for the right place was one of 
General March's hobbies. He believed in military mobi- 
lisation based on occupational qualifications. In other 
words, he believed that a man who had been a telephone 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 99 

operator in civilian life would make a better telephone 
operator in the army than he would make a gunner. 

I was not surpised to find that this same worthy idea 
had permeated in a more or less similar form down to 
the lowest ranks in General March's command at that 
time. I encountered it one cold night in October, when 
I was sitting in one of the barrack rooms talking with 
a man in the ranks. 

That man's name was Budd English. I met him 
first in Mexico on the American Punitive Expedition, 
where he had driven an automobile for Damon Runyon, 
a fellow correspondent. English, with his quaint South- 
western^ wit, had become in Mexico a welcome occu- 
pant of the large pyramidal tent which housed the corre- 
spondents attached to the Expedition. We would sit for 
hours hearing him tell his stories of the plains and the 
deserts of Chihuahua. 

English and I were sitting on his bed at one corner 
of the barrack room, rows of cots ranged each side of 
the wall and on these were the snoring men of the bat- 
tery. The room was dimly illuminated by a candle on 
a shelf over English's head and another candle located 
on another shelf in the opposite corner of the room. 
There was a man in bed in a corner reading a newspaper 
by the feeble rays of the candle. 

Suddenly we heard him growl and tear the page of 
the newspaper in half. His exclamation attracted my 
attention and I looked his way. His hair was closely 
cropped and his head, particularly his ears and fore- 
head, and jaw, stamped him as a rough and ready fighter. 

"That's Kid Ferguson, the pug," English whispered 
to me, and then in louder tones, he enquired, "What's 
eating on you, kid?" 

"Aw. this bunk in the paper," replied Ferguson. Then 



100 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

he glared at me and enquired, "Did you write this stuff?" 

"What stuff?" I replied. "Read it out/' 

Ferguson picked up the paper and began to read in 
mocking tones something that went as follows : 

"Isn't it beautiful in the cold early dawn in France, to 
see our dear American soldiers get up from their bunks 
and go whistling down to the stables to take care of 
their beloved animals." 

English laughed uproariously. 

"The Kid don't like horses no more than I do," he 
said. "Neither one of us have got any use for them 
at all. And here, that's all they keep us doing, is tending 
horses. I went down there the other morning with a 
lantern and one of them long-eared babies just kicked it 
clean out of my hand. The other morning one of them 
planted two hoofs right on Ferguson's chest and knocked 
him clear out of the stable. It broke his watch and 
his girl's picture. 

"You know, Mr. Gibbons, I never did have any usei 
for horses. When I was about eight years old a horse 
bit me. When I was about fifteen years old I got run 
over by an ice-wagon. Horses is just been the ruination 
of me. 

"If it hadn't been for them I might have gone through 
college and been an officer in this here army. You re- 
member that great big dairy out on the edge of the 
town in El Paso ? Well, my dad owned that and he lost 
all of it on the ponies in Juarez. I just hate horses. 

"I know everything there is to know about an auto- 
mobile. I have driven cross country automobile races 
and after we come out of Mexico, after we didn't get 
Villa, I went to work in the army machine shops at 
Fort Bliss and took down all them motor trucks and 
built them all over again. 

I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" loi 

''When Uncle Sam got into the war against Germany, 
this here Artillery Battalion was stationed out at Fort 
Bliss, and I went to see the Major about enlisting, but 
I told him I didn't want to have nothing to do with no 
horses. 

"And he says, 'English, don't you bother about that. 
You join up with this here battalion, because when we 
leave for France we're going to kiss good-bye to them 
horses forever. This here battalion is going to be mo- 
torised/ 

"And now here we are in France, and we still got 
horses, and they don't like me and I don't like them, and 
yet I got to mill around with 'em every day. The Ger- 
mans ain't never going to kill me. They ain't going to 
get a chance. They just going to find me trampled to 
death some morning down in that stable." 

Two or three of the occupants of nearby beds had 
arisen and taken seats on English's bed. They joined 
the conversation. One red-headed youngster, wearing 
heavy flannel underwear in lieu of pajamas, made the 
first contribution to the discussion. 

"That's just what I'm beefing about," he said. "Here 
I've been in this army two months now and I'm still a 
private. There ain't no chance here for a guy that's got 
experience." 

"Experience? Where do you get that experience 
talk?" demanded EngHsh. "What do you know about 
artillery?" 

"That's just what I mean, experience," the red-headed 
one replied with fire. "I got experience. Mr. Gibbons 
knows me. I'm from Chicago, the same as he is. I 
worked in Chicago at Riverview Park. I'm the guy that 
fired the gattling gun in the Monitor and Merrimac 



102 "AND THEY THOUGHT 



show — we had two shows a day and two shows in the 
evening and " 

"Kin you beat that/' demanded English. "You know, 
if this here red-headed guy don't get promotion pretty 
quick, he's just simply going to quit this army and 
leave us flat here in France facing the Germans. 

"Let me tell you about this gattling gun expert. When 
they landed us off of them boats down on the coast, the 
battalion commander turned us all loose for a swim in 
the bay, and this here bird almost drowned. He went 
down three times before we could pull him out. 

"Now, if they don't make him a Brigadier General 
pretty quick, he's going to get sore and put in for a 
transfer to the Navy on the grounds of having submarine 
experience. But he's right in one thing — experience 
don't count for what it should in the army, 

"Right here in our battery we got a lot of plough 
boys from Kansas that have been sitting on a plough and 
looking at a horse's back all their lives, and they got 
them handling the machinery on these here guns. And 
me, who knows everything there is to know about ma- 
chinery, they won't let me even find out which end of 
the cannon you put the shell in and which end it comes 
out of. All I do all day long is to prod around a couple 
of fat-hipped hayburners. My God, I hate horses." 

But regardless of these inconveniences those first 
American artillerymen in our overseas forces applied 
themselves strenuously to their studies. They were there 
primarily to learn. It became necessary for them at first 
to make themselves forget a lot of things that they had 
previously learned by artillery and adapt themselves to 
new methods and instruments of war. 

Did you ever hear of "Swansant, Kansas"? You^ 
probably won't find it on any train schedule in the Sun- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 103 

flower State; in fact, it isn't a place at all. It is the 
name of the light field cannon that France provided our 
men for use against the German line. 

"Swansant, Kansas" is phonetic spelling of the name 
as pronounced by American gunners. The French got 
the same effect in pronunciation by spelling the singular 
"soixante quinze," but a Yankee cannoneer trying to pro- 
nounce it from that orthography was forced to call it a 
"quince," and that was something which it -distinctly 
was not. 

One way or the other it meant the "Seventy-fives" — 
the "Admirable Seventy-five" — the seventy-five milli- 
metre field pieces that stopped the Germans' Paris drive 
at the Marne — the same that gave Little Willie a head- 
ache at Verdun, — the inimitable, rapid firing, target 
hugging, hell raising, shell spitting engine of destruction 
whose secret of recoil remained a secret after almost 
twenty years and whose dependability was a French prov- 
erb. 

At Valdahon where American artillery became ac- 
quainted with the Seventy-five, the khaki-clad gun crews 
called her "some cannon." At seven o'clock every morn- 
ing, the glass windows in my room at the post would 
rattle with her opening barks, and from that minute on 
until noon the Seventy-fives, battery upon battery of 
them, would snap and bark away until their seemingly 
ceaseless fire becomes a volley of sharp cracks which 
sent the echoes chasing one another through the dark re- 
cesses of the forests that conceal them. 

The targets, of course, were unseen. Range elevation, 
deflection, all came to the battery over the signal wires 
that connected the- firing position with some observation 
point also unseen but located in a position commanding 
the terrain under fire. 



104 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

A signalman sat cross-legged on the ground back of 
each battery. He received the firing directions from the 
transmitter clamped to his ears and conveyed them to 
the firing executive who stood beside him. They v^ere 
then megaphoned to the sergeants chief of sections. 

The corporal gunner, with eye on the sighting instru- 
ments at the side of each gun, "laid the piece" for range 
and deflection. Number one man of the crew opened 
the block to receive the shell, which was inserted by 
number two. Number three adjusted the fuse-setter, 
and cut the fuses. Numbers four and five screwed the 
fuses in the shells and kept the fuse-setter loaded. 

The section chiefs, watch in hand, gave the firing com- 
mand to the gun crews, and number one of each piece 
jerked the firing lanyard at ten second intervals or what- 
ever interval the command might call for. The four 
guns would discharge their projectiles. They whined over 
the damp wooded ridge to distant imaginary lines of 
trenches, theoretical cross-roads, or designated sections 
where the enemy was supposed to be massing for attack. 
Round after round would follow, while telephoned cor- 
rections perfected the range, and burst. The course of 
each shell was closely observed as well as its bursting 
effect, but no stupendous records were kept of the indi- 
vidual shots. That was ''peace time stuff." 

These batteries and regiments were learning gunnery 
and no scarcity of shells was permitted to interfere with 
their education. One ofiicer told me that it was his 
opinion that one brigade firing at this schooling post 
during a course of six weeks, had expended more am- 
munition than all of the field artillery of the United 
States Army has fired during the entire period since the 
Civil War. The Seventy-five shells cost approximately 
ten dollars apiece, but neither the French nor American 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 105 

artillery directors felt that a penny's worth was being 
wasted. They said cannon firing could not be learned 
entirely out of a book. 

I had talked with a French instructor, a Yale graduate, 
who had been two years with the guns at the front, and 
I had asked him what in his opinion was the most dis- 
concerting thing that could happen to effect the morale 
of new gunners under actual fire. I wanted some idea 
-of what might be expected of American artillerymen 
.when they made their initial appearance on the line. 

We discussed the effect of counter battery fire, the 
effect on gun crews of asphyxiating gas, either that car- 
ried on the wind from the enemy trenches or that sent 
over in gas shells. We considered the demoralising in- 
fluences of aerial attacks on gun positions behind the line. 

"They are all bad," my informant concluded. "But 
they are expected. Men can stand without complaint and 
without qualm any danger that is directed at them by the 
foe they are fighting. The thing that really bothers, 
though, is the danger of death or injury from their own 
weapons or ammunition. You see, many times there 
is such a thing as a faulty shell, although careful in- 
spection in the munitions plants has reduced this danger 
to a percentage of about one in ten thousand. 

"At the beginning of the war when every little tin 
shop all over the world was converted into a munitions 
factory to supply the great need of shells, much faulty 
ammunition reached the front lines. Some of the shells 
would explode almost as soon as they left the gun. They 
are called shorts. The English, who had the same trou- 
ble, call them 'muzzle bursts.' 

"Sometimes the shell would explode in the bore of the 
cannon, in which case the cannoneers were usually killed 
either by pieces of the shell itself or bits of the cannon. 



io6 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

The gunners have to sit beside the cannon when it is 
fired, and the rest of the gun crew are all within eight 
feet of it. If there is an explosion in the breech of the 
gun, it usually wipes out most of the crew. A muzzle 
burst, or a breech explosion, is one ©f the most discon- 
certing things that could happen in a battery. 

**The other men in the battery know of course that a 
faulty shell caused the explosion. They also know that 
they are firing ammunition from the same lot. After I 
that, as they pull the trigger on each shot, they don't 
know whether the shell is going out of the gun all right 
or whether it is going to explode in the breech and kill 
all of them. That thought in a man's mind when hej 
pulls the firing lanyard, that thought in the minds of thej 
whole crew as they stand there waiting for the crash, is > 
positively demoralising. 

''When it happens in our French artillery the can- 
noneers lose confidence in their pieces. They build small 
individual dugouts a safe ways back from the gun audi 
extend the lanyard a safe distance. Then, with all thej 
gun crew under cover, they fire the piece. This naturally^ 
removes them from their regular firing positions beside; 
the pieces, reduces the accuracy and slows up the entire^ 
action of the battery. The men's suspicions of the shellss 
combined with the fear of death by their own weapons,;, 
which is greater than any fear of death at the hands ofl 
the enemy, all reduce the morale of the gun crews." 

Now, for an incident. A new shipment of ammunitionr 
had reached the post. The caissons were filled with it 
Early the following morning when the guns rumbled 
out of camp to the practice grounds. Battery X was firing, 
in the open. At the third shot the shell from piece num- 
ber two exploded prematurely thirty yards from the muz- 
zle. Pieces three and four fired ten and twenty seconds 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" 107 

later with every man standing on his toes in his pre- 
scribed position. 

Ten rounds later, a shell from number three gun ex- 
ploded thirty feet after leaving the bore. Shell particles 
buried themselves in the ground near the battery. Piece 
number four, right next to it, was due to fire in ten 
seconds. It discharged its projectiles on the dot- 
The gun crews knew what they were up against. They 
were firing faulty ammunition. They passed whispered 
remarks but reloaded with more of the same ammunition 
and with military precision on the immediate command. 
Every man stuck to his position. As each gun was fired 
the immediate possibiHties were not difficult to imagine. 

Then it happened. 

''Commence firing," megaphoned the firing executive. 
The section chief of number one piece dropped his right 
hand as the signal for the dicharge. The corporal gun- 
ner was sitting on the metal seat in front of his instru- 
ments and not ten inches to the left of the breech. Can- 
noneer number one of the gun crew occupied his pre- 
scribed position in the same location to the immediate 
right of the breech. Gunner number two was standing 
six feet behind the breech and slightly to the left ready 
to receive the ejected cartridge case. Gunner number 
three was kneeling over the fuse setter behind the caisson 
which stood wheel to wheel with the gun carriage. Gun- 
ners four and five were rigid statues three feet back of 
him. Every man in the crew had seen the previous bursts 
of dangerous ammunition. 

Number one's eye caught the descending hand of the 
section chief. He pulled the lanyard. 

There was an eruption of orange coloured flame, a 
deafening roar, a crash of rendered steel, a cloud of 
smoke blue green, and yellow. 



io8 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

A black chunk of the gun cradle hurtled backward 
through the air with a vicious swish. A piece of the 
bore splintered the wheels and buried itself in the ammu- 
nition caisson. Thick hunks of gun metal crumbling 
like dry cake filled the air. The ground shook. 

The corporal gunner pitched backward from his seat 
and collapsed on the ground. His mate with fists buried 
in his steel seared eyes staggered out of the choking 
fumes. The rest of the crew picked themselves up in a 
dazed condition. Fifty yards away a horse was strug- 
gling to regain his feet. 

Every man in the three other gun crews knew what 
had happened. None of them moved from their posts. 
They knew their guns were loaded with shells from the 
same lot and possibly with the same faults. No man 
knew what would happen when the next firing pin went 
home. The evidence was before them. Their eyes were 
on the exploded gun but not for long. 

"Crash," the ten second firing interval had expired. 
The section chief of piece number two had dropped his 
hand. The second gun in the battery had fired. 

^'Number two on the way," sang out the signalman 
over the telephone wire to the hidden observation station. 

Ten seconds more for another gun crew to cogitate on 
whether disaster hung on the dart of a firing pin. 

"Crash." 

"Number three on the way." ' 

Another ten seconds for the last section to wonder 
whether death would come with the lanyard jerk. 

"Crash." 

"Number four on the way." Round complete. The 
signalman finished his telephone report. 

Four horses drawing an army ambulance galloped up 
from the ravine that sheltered them. The corporal gun- 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" 109 

ner, unconscious and with one leg pulverised was lifted 
in. Two other dazed members of the crew were helped 
into the vehicle. One was bleeding from the shoulder. 
The lead horses swung about; the ambulance rattled 
away. 

"Battery ready to fire. Piece number one out of ac- 
tion." It was the signalman reporting over the wire to 
the observer. 

Battery X fired the rest of the morning and they used 
ammunition from the same lot and every man knew 
what might happen any minute and every man was in 
his exact position for every shot and nobody happened 
to think about hiding in a dugout and putting a long 
string on the firing lanyard. 

It had been an unstaged, unconscious demonstration 
of nerve and grit and it proved beyond all question the 
capacity of American artiller3TTien to stand by the guns. 

The gunner corporal told the nurse at his bedside how 
it all happened, but he was still under the effects of the 
anesthetic. He did not refer to the morale of his battery 
mates because it had not occurred to him that there was 
anything unusual in what they did. But he did think 
that he could wiggle the toes on his right leg. The doctor 
told me that this was a common delusion before the 
patient had been informed of the amputation. 

Incidents such as the one related had no effect what- 
ever upon the progress of the work. From early dawn 
to late at night the men followed their strenuous duties 
six days a week and then obtained the necessary relief on 
the seventh day by trips down to the ancient town of 
Besangon. 

In this picturesque country where countless thousands 
fought and died, down through the bloody centuries since 
and before the Christian era, where Julius Caesar paused 



no "AND THEY THOUGHT 

in his far flung raids to dictate new inserts to his com- 
mentaries, where kings and queens and dukes and pre- 
tenders left undying traces of ambition's stormy urgings, 
there it was that American soldiers, in training for the 
war of wars, spent week-end hoHdays and mixed the 
breath of romance with the drag of their cigarettes. 

The extender of Roman borders divided that region 
into three parts, according to the testimony of the first 
Latin class, but he neglected to mention that of these 
three parts the one decreed for American occupation was 
the most romantic of them all. 

It is late on a Saturday afternoon and I accept the 
major's offer of a seat in his mud-bespattered "Hunka 
Tin." The field guns have ceased their roar for the 
day and their bores will be allowed to cool over Sunday. 
Five per cent, of the men at the post have received the 
coveted town leave. 

They form a khaki fresco on the cab and sides of the 
giant commissary trucks that raise the dust along the 
winding white road over the hills. Snorting motor- 
cycles with two men over the motor and an officer in 
the side car skim over the ground, passing all others. A 
lukewarm sun disappears in a slot in the mountains and 
a blue grey mist forms in the valleys. A chill comes 
over the air and a cold new moon looks down and laughs. 

It is a long ride to the ancient town, but speed laws 
and motor traps are unknown and the hood of the De- 
troit Dilemma shakes like a wet dog as her sizzling hot 
cylinders suck juice from a full throttle. We cross one 
divide through a winding road bordered by bushy trees 
and as orderly as a national park. We coast through 
a hillside hamlet of barking dogs and saluting children 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" ill 

who stand at smiling attention and greet our passage 
with a shrill "Veev La Mereek" (Vive TAmerique). 

We scud across a broad, level road built well above 
the lowland, and climb through zigzagging avenues of 
stately poplars to the tunnel that pierces the backbone of 
the next ridge. 

While the solid rock walls of the black bore reverber- 
ate with the echoes from our exhaust, we emerge on a 
road that turns sharply to the left and hugs a cliff. Be- 
low winds a broad river that looks like mother of pearl 
in the moonlight. The mountain walls on either side 
rise at angles approximating 45 degrees, and in the light 
their orderly vineyards look like the squares on a sloping 
checkerboard. In front of us and to the right the flank- 
ing ridges converge to a narrow gorge through which 
the river Doub runs to loop the tow^n. 

Commanding this gorge from the crests of the two 
rocky heights are sinister sentinels whose smooth, grey 
walls and towers rise sheer from the brink of the cliffs. 
The moonlight now catching the ramparts of the em- 
battlements splashes them with strokes of white that 
seem ever brighter in contrast with the darker shadows 
made by projecting portions of the walls. Spaniard 
and Moor knew well those walls, and all the kingly 
glory that hurried France to the reign of terror has slept 
within their shadows. 

Our way down the cliff side is hewn out of the beetling 
rock. To our left, a jagged wall of rock rises to the sky. 
To our right, a step, rock-tumbled declivity drops to 
the river's edge. 

The moonlight brings funny fancies, and our yellow 
headlights, wavering in concentric arcs with each turn 
of the course, almost seem to glint on the helmets and 
shields of the spear-bearing legionaries that marched that 



112 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

very way to force a southern culture on the Gauls. We 
slow down to pass through the rock-hewn gate that once 
was the Roman aqueduct bringing water down from 
mountain springs to the town. 

Through the gate, a turn to the left and we reach the 
black bottom of the gorge untouched by the rising moon. 
We face a blast of wind that slows our speed and brings 
with it the first big drops of rain. We stop at the 
'"Octroi" and assure the customs collector that we are 
military, and that we carry no dutiable wine, or beans 
or wood into the town. 

Yet another gate, built across the narrow road between 
the cliff and the river, and we enter the town. It has 
been raining and the cobblestones are slippery. They 
shine in the gleams of pale light -that come from the top- 
heavy street lamps. Gargoyle water spouts drip drain- 
age from the gables of moss-speckled tiles. 

We pass a fountain that the Romans left, and rounded 
arches further on show where the hooded Moor wrote 
his name in masonry. Barred windows and stone bal- 
conies projecting over the street take one's mind off the 
rattling motor and cause it to wander back to times when 
serenading lovers twanged guitars beneath their ladies' 
windows and were satisfied with the flower that dropped 
from the balcony. 

The streets are wet and dark now and through their 
narrow windings our headlights reveal tall figures in 
slickers or khaki overcoats topped by peaked felt hate 
with the red cords of American artillerymen. Their 
identification is a surprise to the dreamer, because one 
rather expects these figures to sulk in the deeper shadows 
and screen their dark, bearded faces with the broad brims 
of black felt hats or muffle themselves to the chin in 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 113 

long, flowing black cloaks that hide rapiers and stilettos 
and other properties of mediaeval charm. 

We dine in a room three hundred years old. The pres- 
ence of our automobile within the inner quadrangle of the 
ancient building jars on the sense of fitness. It is an old 
convent, now occupied by irreligious tenants on the 
upper three floors, restaurants and estaminets on the 
lower floor. These shops open on a broad gallery, level 
with the courtyard, and separated from it only by the 
rows of pillars that support the arches. It extends 
around the four sides of the court. 

Centuries ago shrouded nuns, clasping beads or books 
of office, walked in uncommunicative pairs and mum- 
bled their daily prayers beneath these time-worn arches, 
and to-night it affords a promenade for officers wait- 
ing for their meals to be served at madame's well laid 
tables within. 

Madame's tables are not too many. There is not the 
space economy of an American cafe, where elbows inter- 
lock and waiters are forced to navigate fearsome cargoes 
above the diners' heads. Neither is there the unwhole- 
some, dust-filled carpet of London's roast beef palaces. 

Madame's floor is bare, but the wood has stood the 
scrubbings of years, and is as spotless as grass-dried 
linen. The high ceiling and the walls are of white 
stucco. In bas-relief are clusters of heraldic signs, of 
bishops' crooks and cathedral keys, of mounted chargers 
and dying dragoons, of miter and crown, and trumpet 
and shield, and cross. 

Large mirrors, circled with wreaths of gilded leaves, 
adorn both end walls, and beneath one of them remains 
an ornate fireplace and mantelpiece of bologna coloured 
marble, surmounted with a gilt cock of wondrous de- 
sign. Beneath the other mirror madame has placed 



114 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

her buffet, on which the boy who explores the dusty- 
caves below places the cobwebbed bottles of red wine 
for the last cork pulling. Large gold chandeliers, dang- 
ling with glass prisms, are suspended from high ceiling 
and flood the room with light, against which the inner 
shutters of the tall windows must be shut because of 
danger from the sky. 

There is colour in that room. The Roman conquerors 
would have found it interesting. If former armed oc- 
cupants of the old town could have paraded in their 
ancient habiliments through the room like a procession 
from' the martial past, they would have found much for 
their attention in this scene of the martial present. 
American khaki seems to predominate, although at sev- 
eral tables are Canadian officers in uniforms of the 
same colour but of different tailoring. 

The tables are flecked with all varieties of French 
uniforms, from scarlet pants with solitary black stripes 
down the leg, to tunics of horizon blue. In one corner 
there are two turbaned Algerians with heads bent close 
over their black coffee, and one horn of the hall rack 
shows a red fez with a gold crescent on the crown. 

Consider the company. That freckle-faced youth 
with the fluffed reddish hair of a bandmaster is a French 
aviator, and among the row of decorations on his dark 
blue coat is one that he received by reason of a well 
known adventure over the German lines, which cannot 
be mentioned here. That American colonel whose short 
grey hair blends into the white wall behind him is a 
former member of the United States war college and 
one of the most important factors in the legislation 
that shaped the present military status of his country. 
That other Frenchman with the unusual gold shoulder 
straps is not a member of the French army. He is a 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 115 

naval officer, and the daring with which he carried his 
mapping chart along exposed portions of the line at Ver- 
dun and evolved the mathematical data on which the 
French fired their guns against the German waves has 
been the pride of both the navy and the army. 

Over there is a young captain who this time last year 
was a ^'shavetail" second in command at a small post 
along the line of communications in Chihuahua. Next 
to him sits a tall dark youngster wearing with pride 
his first Sam Browne belt and "U. S. R." on his collar. 
He carted human wreckage to the hospitals on the 
French front for two years before Uncle Sam decided 
to end the war. There's another one not long from 
the "Point," booted and spurred and moulded to his 
uniform. He speaks with a twang of old Virginia on 
every syllable and they say his family — but that has 
nothing to do with the fact that he is aid to a major 
general and is in these parts on a mission. 

There are three American women in the room. One 
who is interested in Y. M. C. A. work and a number 
of newspapers, wears a feminine adaptation of the uni- 
form and holds court at the head of a table of five offi- 
cers. Another, Mrs. Robert R. McCormick, who is en- 
gaged in the extension of the canteen work of a Paris 
organisation, is sitting at our table and she is willing to 
wager her husband anything from half a dozen gloves 
to a big donation check that Germany will be ready for 
any kind of peace before an American offensive in the 
spring. 

The interests of the other American woman are nega- 
tive. She professes no concern in the fact that war cor- 
respondents' life insurances are cancelled, but she repeats 
to me that a dead correspondent is of no use to his paper, 
and I reply that if madame puts yet another one of her 



ii6 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

courses on the board, one correspondent will die with a 
fork in his hand instead of a pencil. 

The diners are leaving. Each opening of the salon 
door brings in a gust of dampness that makes the table- 
cloths flap. Rain coats swish and rustle in the entry. 
Rain is falling in sheets in the black courtyard. The 
moon is gone. 

A merry party trails down the stone gallery skirting 
the quadrangle. Their hobnailed soles and steel plated 
heels ring on the stone flags. The arches echo back their 
song : 

"In days of old 
A warrior bold 

Sang merrily his lay, etc. etc. etc. 
My love is young and fair. 
My love has golden hair, 
So what care I 
Though death be nigh, etc. etc. etc. 

With frequent passages where a dearth of words re- 
duce the selection to musical but meaningless ta-de-ta-tas, 
the voices melt into the blackness and the rain. 

**Great times to be alive," I say to the wife. "This 
place is saturated with romance. I don't have to be 
back to the post until to-morrow night. Where will we 
go? They are singing 'Carmen' in the old opera house 
on the square. What do you say?" 

"There's a Charlie Chaplin on the programme next to 
the hotel," the wife replies. 

Romance was slapped with a custard pie. 



Ji 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 117 



CHAPTER VI 



When the artillery training had proceeded to such a 
point that the French instructors were congratulating 
our officers upon their proficiency, the rumours spread 
through the post that the brigade had been ordered to 
go to the front — that we were to be the first American 
soldiers to actually go into the line and face the Germans. 

The news was received with joy. The men were keen 
to try out their newly acquired abilities upon the enemy. 
Harness was polished until it shone. Brass equipment 
gleamed until you could almost see your face in it. The 
men groomed the horses imtil the animals got pains 
from it. Enlisted men sojourning in the Guard House 
for petty offences, despatched their guards with scrawled 
pleadings that the sentences be changed to fines so that 
they could accompany the outfits to the front. 

With one special purpose in view, I made application 
to General March for an assignment to Battery A of 
the Sixth Field Artillery. I received the appointment. 
The Sixth was the first regiment of the brigade and A 
was the first battery of the regiment. I knew that we 
would march out in that order, that Battery A would 
entrain first, detrain first, go in the line first, and I hoped 
to be present at the firing of the first American shot in 
the war. 

We pulled out of the post on schedule time early in 
the morning, two days later. Officers and men had 
been up and dressed since midnight. Ten minutes after 
their arising, blankets had been rolled and all personal 



ii8 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

equipment packed ready for departure with the exception 
of mess kits. 

While the stable police details fed the horses, the rest 
of us "leaned up against" steak, hot biscuits, syrup and 
hot coffee. The cook had been on the job all night and 
his efforts touched the right spot. It seemed as if it 
was the coldest hour of the night and the hot **chow'* 
acted as a primer on the sleepy human machines. 

In the darkness, the animals were packed into the 
gun carriages and caissons down in the gun park, and 
it was 4 A. M. on the dot when the captain's whistle 
sounded and we moved off the reserve. As we rattled 
over the railroad crossing and took the road, the men 
made facetious good-byes to the scene of their six weeks* 
training. 

Soldiers like movement — we were on the move. Every 
one's spirits were up and the animals were frisky and 
high-stepping in the brisk air. Chains rattled as some 
of the lead pairs mussed up the traces and were brought 
back into alignment by the drivers. The cannoneers, 
muffled in great coats, hung on the caisson seats and 
chided the drivers. 

We were off. Where we were going, seemed to make 
no difference. Rumours could never be depended upon, 
so none of us knew our destination, but all of us hoped 
that we were going into action. Every man in the bat- 
tery felt that the schooling was over and that the battery, 
if given a chance, could prove that it needed no further 
training. 

At the same time, some of the men expressed the fear 
that we were on our way to some other training camp 
for some post-graduate course in firing or maybe for 
the purpose of instructing other less advanced batteries. 
The final consensus of opinion was, however, that *'beef- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 119 

ing" about our prospects wouldn't change them, and that 
anything was better than staying in the same place for- 
ever. 

Two miles from the post the road crossed the rail- 
road tracks. The crossing bore a name as everything 
else did in that land of poetical nomenclature. There was 
only one house there. It was an old grey stone cottage, 
its walls covered with vines, and its garden full of 
shrubbery. It was occupied by three persons, the old 
crossing-tender, his wife — and one other. That other 
was Jeanne. Jeanne was their daughter. 

We had seen her many times as she opened the cross- 
ing gates for traffic on the road. She was about sixteen 
years old. Her ankles were encased in thick grey woollen 
hose of her own knitting and, where they emerged from 
her heavy wooden shoes, it looked as if every move 
in her clumsy footgear might break them off. , 

As we approached the crossing, Gallagher, who rode 
one of the lead pair on piece No; 2, began to give vent 
to his fine Irish tenor. Gallagher was singing: 

"We were sailing along 

On Moonlight bay. 

You could hear the voices ringing, 

They seemed to say, 
*You have stolen my heart 

Now, don't go away,' 

As we kissed and said good-bye 

On Moonlight bay." 

It would almost have seemed that there was need of 
some explanation for Gallagher's musical demonstration 
on this cold, dark morning, but none was demanded. 
Gallagher apparently knew what he was doing. 



120 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

His pair of lead horses were walking in much too 
orderly a fashion for the occasion. Apparently the 
occasion demanded a little greater show of dash and 
spirit. Gallagher sunk his spurs into the flanks of his 
mount and punched its mate in the ribs with the heavy 
handle of his riding crop. 

The leads lunged forward against their collars. The 
sudden plunge was accompanied by a jangle of chains 
as the traces tightened. The gun carriage jolted and 
the cannoneers swore at the unnecessary bouncing. 

"Easy, Zigg-Zigg, whoa, Fini." Gallagher pulled on 
the lines as he shouted in a calculated pitch the French 
names of his horses. And then the reason for Galla- 
gher's conduct developed. 

A pair of wooden shutters on a first floor window of 
the gate-tender's cottage opened outward. In the win- 
dow was a lamp. The yellow rays from it shone up- 
ward and revealed a tumbled mass of long black hair, 
black eyes that gleamed, red cheeks and red lips. Then 
a sweet voice said : 

"Gude-bye, Meeky." 

"Orry wore, Jeen," replied Gallagher. 

*'Apres la guerre, Meeky," said Jeanne. 

"Orry wore, Jeen," repeated Gallagher. 

"Oh, Jeanie, dear, please call me 'Meeky,' '* sang out 
one of the men, astride one of the wheel pair of the 
same gun. 

The window had closed, but before the light disap- 
peared, black eyes flashed hate at the jester, and Galla- 
gher, himself, two horses ahead, turned in the saddle 
and told the taunter to shut his mouth, observing at the 
same time that "some guys didn't know a decent girl 
when they saw one." 

We rode on. Soon, on the left, the sun came up cold 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 121 

out of Switzerland's white topped ridges miles away, 
and smiling frigidly across the snow-clad neutral Alps, 
dispelled the night mist in our part of the world. 

The battery warmed under its glow. Village after 
village we passed through, returning the polite salutes, 
of early rising grand-sires who tmcovered their grey 
heads, or wrinkled, pink-faced grandmothers, who waved 
kerchiefs from gabled windows beneath the thatch and 
smiled the straight and dry-lipped smile of toothless age 
as they wished us good fortune in the war. 

We messed at midday by the roadside, green fields 
and hills of France, our table decorations, cold beef 
and dry bread, our fare, with canteens full to wash it 
down. When the horses had tossed their nose-bags fu- 
tilely for the last grains of oats, and the captain's watch 
had timed the rest at three-quarters of the hour, we 
mounted and resumed the march. 

The equipment rode easy on man and beast. Packs 
had been shifted to positions of maximum comfort. 
The horses were still fresh enough to need tight rein. 
The men had made final adjustments to the chin straps 
on their new steel helmets and these sat well on heads 
that never before had been topped with armoured cover- 
ing. In addition to all other equipment, each man car- 
ried two gas masks. Our top sergeant had an explana- 
tion for me as to this double gas mask equipment. 

*T'll tell you about it," he said, as he ruthlessly ac- 
cepted the next-to-the-last twenty-five centime Egyptian 
cigarette from my proffered case. I winced as he delib- 
erately tore the paper from that precious fine smoke and 
inserted the filler in his mouth for a chew. 

"You see, England and France and us is all Allies," 
he said. "Both of them loves us and we love both of 
them. We don't know nothing about gas masks and 



122 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

they knows all there is to know about them. The French 
say their gas mask is the best. The British say their gas 
mask is the best. 

"Well, you see, they both offer us gas masks. Now 
Uncle Sam don't want to hurt nobody's feelings, so he 
says, ^Gentlemen, we won't fight about this here mat- 
ter. We'll just use both gas masks, and give each of 
them a try-out.' 

*'So here we are carrying two of these human nose- 
bags. The first time we get into a mess of this here 
gas, somebody will send the order around to change 
masks in the middle of it — just to find out which is the 
best one." 

The sergeant, with seeming malice, spat some of that 
fine cigarette on a roadside kilometer stone and closed 
the international prospects of the subject. 

Our battery jangled through a tunnelled ridge and 
emerged on the other side just as a storm of rain anc^ 
hail burst with mountain fur}^ The hailstones rattled 
on our metal helmets and the men laughed at the sound 
as they donned slickers. The brakes grated on the cais- 
son wheels as we took the steep down-grade. The road 
hugged the valley wall which was a rugged, granite cliff. 

I rode on ahead through the stinging hailstones and 
watched our battery as it passed through the historic 
rock-hewn gateway that is the entrance to the medicxval 
town of Besangon. The portal is located at a sharp turn 
of the river. The gateway is carved through a moun- 
tain spur. Ancient doors of iron-studded oak still guard 
the entrance, but they have long since stood open. Bat- 
tlements that once knew the hand of Vaubon frown 
down in ancient menace to any invader. 

No Roman conqueror at the head of his invading 
legions ever rode through that triumphal arch with 




CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING AMERICAN 
OFFICERS IN THE USE OF THE ONE-POUNDER 




IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE VESLE THIS 155 MM. 
GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO 
RESPECT AMERICA. THE TRACTOR HAULS IT ALONG STEADILY 
AND SLOWLY, LIKE A STEAM ROLLER 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 123 

-^^reater pride than rode our little captain at the head 
of his battery. Our little captain was in stature the 
smallest man in our battery, but he compensated for 
that by riding the tallest horse in the battery. 

He carried his head at a jaunty angle. He wore his 
helmet at a nifty tilt, with the chin strap riding between 
..is underlip and his "dimpled, upheld chin. He carried 
his shoulders back, and his chest out. The reins hung 
gracefully in his left hand, and he had assumed a rather 
moving-picture pose of the right fist on his right hip. 
Bthind him flew the red guidon, its stirruped staff held 
stiffly at the right arm's length by the battery standard 
bearer. 

Both of them smiled — expansive smiles of pride — into 
tue clicking lens of my camera. I forgave our little 
cap.ain for his smile of pride. I knew that six weeks 
before that very day our little captain had fitted into 
the scheme of civilian life as a machinery salesman from 
j.x.diana. And there that day, he rode at the head of his 
two hundred and fifty fighting men and horses, at the 
head of his guns, rolling down that road in France on 
the way to the front. 

In back of him and towering upward, was that his- 
toric rock that had known the tread and passage of count- 
less martial footsteps down through the centuries. Be- 
hind him, the gun carriages rattled through the frown- 
ing portal. Oh, if the folks back on the Wabash could 
have seen him then! 

We wound through the crooked narrow streets of 
Besangon, our steel-tired wheels bounding and banging 
over the cobblestones. Townsfolk waved to us from 
windows and doorways. Old women in the market 
square abandoned their baskets of beet roots and beans 
to flutter green stained aprons in our direction. Our 



124 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

column was flanked by clattering phalanxes of wooden- 
shoed street gamins, who must have known more about 
our movements than we did, because they all shouted, 
•'Gude-bye." 

Six weeks* familiarity between these same artillerymen 
on town leave and these same urchins had temporised 
the blind admiration that caused them first to greet 
our men solely with shouts of ''Vive les Americains" 
Now that they knew us better, they alternated the old 
greeting with shouts of that all-meaning and also mean- 
ingless French expression, "Oo la la." 

Our way led over the stone, spanned bridge that 
crossed the sluggish river through the town, and on to 
the hilly outskirts where mounted French guides met 
and directed us to the railroad loading platform. 

The platform was a busy place. The regimental sup- 
ply company which was preceding us over the road was 
engaged in forcibly persuading the last of its mules to 
enter the toy freight cars which bore on the side the 
printed legend, "Hommes 40, Chevaux 8." 

Several arclights and one or two acetylene flares il- 
luminated the scene. It was raining fitfully, but not 
enough to dampen the spirits of the Y. M. C. A. workers 
who wrestled with canvas tarpaulins and foraged mate- 
rials to construct a make-shift shelter for a free coffee 
and sandwich counter. 

Their stoves were burning brightly and the hurriedly 
erected stove pipes, leaning wearily against the stone 
wall enclosing the quay, topped the wall like a miniature 
of the sky line of Pittsburgh. The boiling cofifee pots 
gave off a delicious steam. In the language of our bat- 
tery, the **Whime say" delivered the goods. 

During it all the mules brayed and the supply com- « 
pany men swore. Most humans, cognizant of the prin-.- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 125 

ciples of safety first, are respectful of the rear quarters 
of a mule. We watched one disrespecter of these prin- 
ciples invite what might have been called "mulecide" 
with utter contempt for the consequences. He deliber- 
ately stood in the dangerous immediate rear of one par- 
ticularly onery mule, and kicked the mule. 

His name was ^'Missouri Slim," as he took pains to 
inform the object of his caress. He further announced 
to all present, men and mules, that he had been brought 
up with mules from babyhood and knew mules from the 
tips of their long ears to the ends of their hard tails. 

The obdurate animal in question had refused to enter 
the door of the car that had been indicated as his Pull- 
man. "Missouri Slim" called three other ex-natives of 
Champ Clark's state to his assistance. They fearlessly 
put a shoulder under each of the mule's quarters. Then 
they grunted a unanimous "heave," and lifted the strug- 
gling animal off itc feet. As a perfect matter of course, 
they walked right into the car with him with no more 
trouble than if he had been an extra large bale of hay. 

"Wonderful mule handling in this here army," re- 
marked a quiet, mild-mannered man in uniform, beside 
whom I happened to be standing. He spoke with a slow, 
almost sleepy, drawl. He was the new veterinarian of 
the supply company, and there were a number of things 
that were new to him, as his story revealed. He was the 
first homesick horse doctor I ever met. 

"I come from a small town out in Iowa," he told me. 
"I went to a veterinary college and had a nice little prac- 
tice, — sorter kept myself so busy that I never got much 
of a chance to think about this here war. But one day, 
about two months ago, I got a letter from the War De- 
partment down in Washington. 

"They said the boss doctor college had given them 



126 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

my name as one of the graduates and the letter said 
that the War Department was making out a list of 
hoss doctors. The letter asked me to fill out the blank 
and send it to Washington. 

" 7o^/ "^y wife says to me, 'this here is an honour that 
the country is paying to you. The Government just 
wants the names of the patriotic professional citizens of 
the country.' So we filled out the blank and mailed it 
and forgot all about it. 

"Well, about two weeks later, I got , a letter from 
Washington telling me to go at once to Douglas, Arizona. 
It sorter scared the wife and me at first because neither 
of us had ever been out of Iowa, but I told her that 
I was sure it wasn't anything serious — I thought that 
Uncle Sam just had some sick bosses down there and 
wanted me to go down and look them over. 

''Well, the wife put another shirt and a collar and 
an extra pair of socks in my hand satchel along with 
my instruments and I kissed her and the little boy good- 
bye and told them that I would hurry up and prescribe 
for the Government bosses and be back in about five 
days. 

"Two days later I landed in Douglas, and a major 
shoved me into a uniform and told me I was commis-i 
sioned as a hoss doctor lieutenant. That afternoon I 
was put on a train with a battery and we were on our 
way east. Six days later we were on the ocean. We 
landed somewhere in FYance and moved way out here 

"My wife was expecting me back in five days and herei 
it is I've been away two months and I haven't had ai 
letter from her and now we're moving up to the front.). 
It seems to me like I've been away from Iowa for ten 
years, and I guess I am a little homesick, but it sure is 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 127 



a comfort to travel with an outfit that knows how to 
handle mules like this one does." 

The supply company completed loading, and the home- 
sick horse doctor boarded the last car as the train moved 
down the track. Our battery took possession of the 
platform. A train of empties was shunted into position 
and we began loading guns and wagons on the flat cars 
and putting the animals into the box cars. 

Considerable confusion accompanied this operation. 
The horses seemed to have decided scruples against en- 
tering the cars. It was dark and the rain came down 
miserably. The men swore. There was considerable 
kicking on the part of the men as well as the animals. 

I noticed one group that was gathered around a plung- 
ing team of horses. The group represented an entangle- 
ment of rope, harness, horses and men. I heard a clang 
of metal and saw the flash of two steel-shod hoofs. A 
little corporal, holding his head up with both hands, 
backed out of the group, — backed clear across the plat- 
form and sat down on a bale of hay. 

I went to his assistance. Blood was trickling through 
his fingers. I washed his two scalp wounds with water 
from a canteen and applied first aid bandages. 

''Just my luck," I heard my patient mumbling as I 
swathed his head in white strips and imparted to him 
the appearance of a first-class front line casualty. 

"You're lucky," I told him truthfully. ''Not many 
men get kicked in the head by a horse and escape with- 
out a fractured skull." 

"That isn't it," he said; "you see for the last week 
I've been wearing that steel helmet — that cast-iron som- 
brero that weighs so much it almost breaks your neck, 
and two minutes before that long-legged baby kicked 
me, the tin hat fell off my head." 



128 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

By the time our battery had been loaded, another 
battery was waiting to move on to the platform. Our 
captain went down the length of the train examining 
the halter straps in the horse cars and assuring himself 
of the correct apportionment of men in each car. Then 
we moved out on what developed to be a wild night ride. 

The horse has been described as man's friend and 
no one questions that a horse and a man, if placed out 
in any large open space, are capable of getting along to 
their mutual comfort. But when army regulations and 
the requirements of military transportation place eight 
horses and four men in the same toy French box car 
and then pat all twelve of them figuratively on the neck 
and tell them to lie down together and sleep through 
an indefinite night's ride, it is not only probable, but it 
is certain, that the legendary comradeship of the man 
and the horse ceases. The described condition does not 
encompass the best understood relation of the two as 
travelling companions. 

On our military trains in France, the reservations of 
space for the human and dumb occupants of the same 
car were something as follows : Four horses occupied 
the forward half of the car. Four more horses occu- 
pied the rear half of the car. Four men occupied the 
remaining space. The eight four-footed animals are 
packed in lengthwise with their heads towards the cen- 
tral space between the two side doors. The central 
space is reserved for the four two-footed animals. 

Then the train moves. If the movement is forward 
and sudden, as it usually is, the four horses in the for- 
ward end of the car involuntarily obey the rules of in- 
ertia and slide into the central space. If the movement 
of the train is backward and equally sudden, the four 
horses in the rear end of the car obey the same rule 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 129 

and plunge forward into the central space. On the 
whole, night life for the men in the straw on the floor 
of the central space is a lively existence, while ^'riding 
the rattlers with a horse outfit." 

Our battery found it so. I rode a number of miles 
that night sitting with four artillerymen in the central 
space between the side doors which had been closed 
upon orders. From the roof of the car, immediately 
above our heads, an oil lantern swung and swayed with 
every jolt of the wheels and cast a feeble light down 
upon our conference in the straw. We occupied a small 
square area which we had attempted to particularise by 
roping it off. 

On either side were the blank surfaces of the closed 
doors. To either end were the heads of four nervous 
animals, eight ponderous hulks of steel-shod horseflesh, 
high strung and fidgety, verging almost on panic under 
the unusual conditions they were enduring, and subject 
at any minute to new fits of excitement. 

We sat at their feet as we rattled along. I recalled 
the scene of the loose cannon plunging about the crowded 
deck of a rolling vessel at sea and related Hugo's thrill- 
ing description to my companions. 

"Yeah," observed Shoemaker, driver of the ''wheelers" 
on No. 4 piece, *'Yeah, but there ain't no mast to climb 
up on and get out of the way on in this here boxcar." 

"I'd rather take my chances with a cannon any day," 
said 'Beady' Watson, gunner. "A cannon will stay put 
when you fix it. There's our piece out on the flat car 
and she's all lashed and blocked. It would take a wreck 
to budge her off that flat. I wish the B. C. had let me 
ride with the old gun out there. It would be a little 
colder but a lot healthier. Try to go to sleep in here 
and you'll wake up with a horse sitting on you." 



130 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"Where do you suppose we are going anyway ?" asked 
Slater, fuse cutter in the same section. "I'm strong for 
travel, but I always like to read the program before we 
start to ramble. For all we know we might be on our 
way to Switzerland or Italy or Spain or Egypt or some- 
where." 

"Why don*t you go up and ask the Captain?" sug- 
gested Boyle, corporal in charge of the car. "Maybe the 
Colonel gave him a special message to deliver to you 
about our dusty-nation. You needn't worry though. 
They ain't going to bowl us out of France for some time 
yet." 

"Well, if we're just joy-riding around France," re- 
plied Slater, "I hope we stop over to feed the horses 
at Monte Carlo. I've heard a lot about that joint. They 
say that they run the biggest crap game in the world 
there, and the police lay off the place because the Gov- 
ernor of the State or the King or something, banks the 
game. They tell me he uses straight bones and I figure 
a man could clean up big if he hit the game on a pay- 
day." 

"Listen, kid, you've got this tip wrong," said Shoe- 
maker. "If there's anything happens to start a riot 
among these horses, you are going to find that you're 
gambling with death. And if we ever get off this train, 
I think we have a date with Kaiser Bill." 

"I've got a cousin somewhere in the German army. 
He spells his 'Shoemaker' with a 'u.' My dad told me 
that my grandfather and this cousin's grandfather had 
a business disagreement over a sauerkraut factory some 
time before the Civil War and my grandfather left 
Germany. Since then, there ain't been no love lost 
between the branches of the family, but we did hear 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 131 

that Cousin Hans had left the sauerkraut business and 
was packing a howitzer for the Kaiser." 

"Well, I hope we come across him for your sake," 
said Watson. "It's kinda tough luck to get cheated out 
of a big business like that, but then you must remember 
that if your cousin's grandfather hadn't pulled the 
dirty on your grandfather, your grandfather might never 
have gone to America and most likely you'd still be 
a German." 

"I guess there's some sense in that, too," replied Shoe- 
maker; "wouldn't that been hell if I'd been on the other 
side in this war? But anyhow, I do hope we run into 
Cousin Hans somewhere." 

The horses had been comparatively quiet for some 
time, but now they seemed to be growing restless. They 
pricked their ears and we knew something was bother- 
ing them. The discussion stopped so that we could listen 
better. 

Above the rattle of the train, there came to us the 
sound of firing. It seemed to come from the direction 
in which we were going. With surprising quickness, 
the explosions grew louder. We were not only speed- 
ing toward the sounds of conflict, but the conflict itself 
seemed to be speeding toward us. 

Then came a crash unmistakably near. One of the 
horses in the forward end reared, and his head thumped 
the roof of the car. Once again on four feet, he pranced 
nervously and tossed his blood-wet forelock. Immedi- 
ately the other horses began stamping. 

Another crash! — this time almost directly overhead. 
In the light of the swinging lantern, I could see the 
terror in the eyes of the frightened brutes. We clung 
to their halters and tried to quiet them but they lifted 
us off our feet. 



132 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"Put a twitch on that one's nose and hold him down," 
Boyle ordered. 

"Gosh," said Slater, obeying, "we must be right up 
on the front line. Hope they don't stop this train in 
No Man's Land. Hold still, you crazy b " 

"Cousin Hans must have heard you talking," Watson 
shouted to Shoemaker. "Maybe you're going to see 
him quicker than you expected." 

The train was slowing down. The brakes shrieked 
and grated as we came to a jerky stop. Three of us 
braced ourselves at the heads of the four horses in the 
rear of the car and prevented them from sliding on top 
of us. Boyle and Slater were doing their best to quiet 
the forward four. The explosions overhead increased. 
Now we heard the report of field pieces so close that 
they seemed to be almost alongside the track. 

There came a sharp bang at one of the side doors, j 
and I thought I recognised the sound of the lead-loaded I 
handle of the captain's riding whip. His voice, coming I 
to us a minute later above the trampling and kicking of 
the panic-stricken animals, verified my belief. 

"Darken that lantern," he shouted. "Keep all lights 
out and keep your helmets on. Stay in the cars and 
hang on to the horses. There is an air raid on right 
above us." 

"Yes, sir," replied Boyle, and we heard the captain 
run to the next car. I blew out the light and we were 
in complete darkness, with eight tossing, plunging horses . 
that kicked and reared at every crash of the guns nearby '! 
or burst of the shells overhead. 

We hung on while the air battle went on above. One 
horse went down on his knees and in his frantic strug- 
gles to regain his feet, almost kicked the feet from un^ 
der the animal beside him. 

ii 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 133 

At times, thunderous detonations told us that aerial 
bombs were doing their work near at hand. We sup- 
posed correctly that we were near some town not far 
behind the lines, and that the German was paying it a 
night visit with some of his heaviest visiting cards. 

I opened one side door just a crack and looked out. 
The darkness above blossomed with blinding blotches 
of fire that flashed on and off. It seemed as though the 
sky were a canopy of black velvet perforated with 
hundreds of holes behind which dazzling lights passed 
back and forth, flashing momentary gleams of brilliance 
through the punctures. Again, this vision would pass as 
a luminous dripping mass would poise itself on high and 
cast a steady white glare that revealed clusters of grey 
smoke puffs of exploded shrapnel. 

We had to close the door because the flashes added to 
the terror of the horses, but the aerial activity passed 
almost as suddenly as it had come and left our train un- 
touched. As the raiding planes went down the wind, 
followed always by the poppings of the anti-aircraft 
guns, the sound of the conflict grew distant. We got 
control over the horses although they still trembled with 
fright. 

There came another rap at the door and I hurriedly 
accepted the captain's invitation to accompany him for- 
ward to a first-class coach where I spent the remainder 
of the night stretched out on the cushions. As our train 
resumed its way into the darkness, I dreamed of racing 
before a stampede of wild horses. 



134 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

CHAPTER Vn 

INTO THE LINE — THE FIRST AMERICAN SHOT IN THE WAR 

A DAMP, chill, morning mist made the dawn even 
greyer as our battery train slid into a loading platform 
almost under the walls of a large manufacturing plant 
engaged in producing war materials. 

In spite of the fact that the section chiefs reported 
that not a man had been injured, and not so much as a 
leg broken in the crowded horse cars, every man in the 
battery now declared the absence of any doubt but the 
air raid had been directly aimed at Battery A. 

"There might be a spy in this here very outfit,'* said 
'Texas' Tinsdale, the battery alarmist. *'Else how could 
them German aviators have known that Battery A was 
on the road last night ? They knew we was on the way 
to the front and they tried to get us." 

''Hire a hall," shouted the gruffy top sergeant. "We've 
got two hours to unload. A lot of you fireside veterans 
get busy. Gun crews get to work on the flats and drivers 
unload horses. No chow until we're ready to move 
out." 

The sign on a station lamp-post told us the name of the 
town. It was Jarville. But it jarred nothing in our 
memories. None of us had ever heard of it before. 
I asked the captain where we were. 

"Just about thirty miles behind the front," he replied. 
"We are moving up to our last billets as soon as we un- 
load and feed." 

The horses had made the ride wearing their harness, 
some of which had become entangled and broken in tran- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 135 

sit. A number of saddles had slipped from backs and 
were down behind forelegs. 

"We're learning something every minute," the cap- 
tain exclaimed. "American army regulations call for 
the removal of all harness from the horses before they 
are put into the cars, but the French have learned that 
that is a dangerous practice over here. 

"You can't unload unharnessed horses and get them 
hitched to the guns as quick as you can harnessed horses. 
The idea is this. We're pretty close behind the Hnes. 
A German air party might make this unloading platform 
a visit at any time and if any of them are in the air 
and happen to see us unloading, they'd sure call on us. 

"The French have learned that the only way to make 
the best of such a situation, if it should arise, is to have 
the horses already harnessed so that they can be run 
out of the cars quickly, hitched to the guns in a jiffy and 
hurried away. If the horses are in the cars unharnessed, 
and all of the harness is being carried in other cars, con- 
fusion is increased and there is a greater prospect of 
your losing your train, horses, guns and everything from 
an incendiary bomb, ndt to mention low flying machine 
work." 

His explanation revealed a promising attitude that I 
found in almost all American soldiers of all ranks that 
I had encountered up to that time in France. The foun- 
dation of the attitude was a willingness to admit igno- 
rance of new conditions and an eagerness to possess 
themselves of all knowledge that the French and British 
had acquired through bitter and costly experience. 

Further than that, the American inclination pushed 
the soldier students to look beyond even those then ac- 
cepted standards. The tendency was to improve beyond 
the French and British, to apply new American prin- 



136 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

ciples of time or labour-saving to simple operation, to 
save man-power and horseflesh by sane safety appli- 
ances, to increase efficiency, speed, accuracy — in a word, 
their aim was to make themselves the best fighting men 
in the Allied cause. 

One instance of this is worthy of recounting. I came 
upon the young Russian who was the battery saddler. 
He was a citizen of the United States whose uniform 
he wore, but he was such a new citizen, that he hardly 
spoke English. I found him handling a small piece of 
galvanised iron and a horse shoe. He appeared to be 
trying to fit the rumpled piece of metal into the shoe. 

In his broken English he explained that he was trying 
to fashion a light metal plate that could be easily placed 
between a horse's shoe and the hoof, to protect the frog 
of the foot from nails picked up on the road. With all 
soldiers wearing hobnailed boots, the roads were full of 
those sharp bits of metal which had caused serious losses 
of horseflesh through lameness and blood poisoning. 

The unloading had continued under the eyes of smil- 
ing French girls in bloomers who were just departing 
from their work on the early morning shift in the muni- 
tion factory beside the station. These were the first 
American soldiers they had seen and they were free to 
pass comment upon our appearance. So were the men 
of Battery A, who overlooked the oiled, grimed faces 
and hands of the bloomered beauties, and announced the 
general verdict that "they sure were fat little devils." 

The unloading completed, a scanty snack consisting of 
two unbuttered slices of white bread with a hunk of cold 
meat and maybe the bite of an onion, had been put away 
by the time the horses' nose bags were empty. With a 
French guide in the lead, we moved off the platform, 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 137 

rattled along under a railroad viaduct, and down the 
main street of Jarville, which was large enough to boast 
street car tracks and a shell-damaged cathedral spire. 

The remaining townsfolk had lived with the glare and 
rumble of the front for three years now and the pas- 
sage back and forth of men and horses and guns hardly 
elicited as much attention as the occasional promenade of 
a policeman in Evanston, Illinois. But these were dif- 
ferent men that rode through those streets that day. 

This was the first battery of American artillery that 
had passed that way. This was an occasion and the 
townspeople responded to it. Children, women and old 
men chirped "vivas," kissed hands, bared heads and 
waved hats and aprons from curb and shop door and 
windows overhead. 

There was no cheering, but there were smiles and tears 
and "God bless you's." It was not a vociferous greet- 
ing, but a heart-felt one. They offered all there was 
left of an emotion that still ran deep and strong within 
but that outwardly had been benumbed by three years 
of nerve-rack and war-weariness. 

Onward into the zone of war we rode. On through 
successive battered villages, past houses without roofs, 
windows with shattered panes, stone walls with gaping 
shell holes through them, churches without steeples, our 
battery moved toward the last billeting place before en- 
tering the line. 

This was the ancient town of Saint-Nicolas-du-Port on 
the banks of the river Meurthe. Into the Place de la 
Republic of the town the battery swung with a clamor- 
ous advance guard of schoolchildren and street gamins. 

The top sergeant who had preceded the battery into 
the town, galloped up to the captain upon our entry 
and presented him with a sheaf of yellow paper slips, 



138 "AND THEY THOUGHT | 

which bore the addresses of houses and barns and the 
complements of men and horses to be quartered in each. | 
This was the billeting schedule provided by the French! 
major of the town. The guns were parked, the horsesi 
picketed and the potato peelers started on their endless 
task. The absence of fuel for the mess fires demanded 
immediate correction. 

It was a few minutes past noon when the captain and 
I entered the office of the French Town Major. It 
was vacant. The officers were at dejeuner, we learned 
from an old woman who was sweeping the command- 
ant's rooms. Where ? — Ah, she knew not. We accosted 
the first French officer we met on the street. 

"Where does the Town Major eat?" the Captain in-j 
quired in his best Indianapolis French. After the cus-- 
tomary exchange of salutes, introductions, handshakes 
and greetings, the Frenchman informed us that Monsieur 
Le Commandant favoured the pommard that Madame 
Larue served at the Hotel de la Fountaine. 

We hurried to that place, and there in a little back 
room behind a plate-cluttered table with a red and white 
checkered table cloth, we found the Major. The Major ' 
said he spoke the English with the fluency. He demon- 
strated his delusion when we asked for wood. 

"Wood ! Ah, but it is impossible that it is wood you 
ask of me. Have I not this morning early seen with 
my own eyes the wood ordered ?" 

"But there is no wood," replied the Captain. "I must; 
have wood for the fires. It is past noon and my men J 
have not eaten." ' 

"Ah, but I am telling you there is wood," replied the 
Major. "I saw your supply officer pay for the wood. 
By now I believe it has been delivered for you in the J 
Place de la Republique." 

I 
I' 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 139 

"But it hasn't," remonstrated the Captain, "and the 
fires have not yet been started, and " 

"But it is on the way, probably," said the Major. 
"Maybe it will be there soon. Maybe it is there now." 

The Captain took another tack. 

"Where was the wood bought?" he asked. 

"From the wood merchant beyond the river," replied 
the Major. "But it is already on the way, and " 

"How do you go to the wood merchant ?" insisted the 
Captain. "We have got to have the wood toot sweet." 

"Ah ! tout de suite — tout de suite — tout de suite,*' re- 
peated the Major in tones of exasperation. "With you 
Americans it is always tout de suite. Here " 

He took my notebook and drew a plan of streets indi- 
cating the way to the place of the wood merchant. In 
spite of his remark and the undesired intrusion of busi- 
ness upon his dejeuner J the Major's manner was as 
friendly as could be expected from a Town Major. We 
left on the run. 

The wood merchant was a big man, elderly and fat. 
His face was red and he had bushy grey eyebrows. He 
wore a smock of blue cloth that came to his knees. He 
remonstrated that it was useless for us to buy wood from 
him because wood had already been bought for us. He 
spoke only French. The Captain dismissed all further 
argument by a direct frontal attack on the subject. 

''Avez-vous de hoisT' asked the Captain. 

"Oui/' the merchant nodded. 

'^Avez-vous de chevauxf the Captain asked. 

*'Ouij' the merchant nodded again. 

"AveZ'Vous de voituref' the Captain asked. 

"Oui," — another nod. 

"All right then," continued the Captain, and then 
emphasising each word by the sudden production of an- 



140 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

other stiff finger on his extended hand, he said, ''Du hois 
— des chevaux — une voiture — de whole damn business — 
and toot sweet." 

In some remarkable fashion the kindly wood merchant 
gathered that the Captain wanted wood piled in a wagon, 
drawn by a horse and wanted it in a hurry. Tout de 
suite, pronounced "toot sweet" by our soldiers, was a I 
term calling for speed, that was among the first acquired | 
by our men in France. f 

The old man shrugged his shoulders, elevated his 
hand, palm outward, and signified with an expression 
of his face that it was useless to argue further for the 
benefit of these Americans. He turned and gave the ]| 
necessary loading orders to his working force. 

That working force consisted of two French girls, 
each about eighteen years of age. They wore long baggy | 
bloomers of brown corduroy, tight at the ankles where 
they flopped about in folds over clumsy wooden shoes. 
They wore blouses of the same material and tam o'shan- 
ter hats to match, called berets. 

Each one of them had a cigarette hanging from the 
corner of her mouth. One stood on the ground and 
tossed up the thirty or forty-pound logs to her sister 
who stood above on top of the wagon. The latter caught 
them in her extended arms and placed them in a pile. 
To the best of my recollection, neither one of the girls 
missed a puff. 

While the loading proceeded, the wood merchant, 
speaking slowly in French, made us understand the fol- 
lowing : 

"Many peculiar things happen in the war. Monsieur,'* 
he said. "Your country, the America, is the land of 
wonders. Listen, my name is Helois. Ten days ago 
there came to me one of the washerwomen who clean 

I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 141 

the clothes on the banks of the Meurthe, and she said 
to me: 

" *Ah, Monsieur, the wood merchant. You are the 
sly fox. I have your secret.' And I say to her that I 
know not of what she speaks. 

" *You boast in the town that your two sons are at 
the front/ she said, *but I know that one at least of 
them is not' And I was dumbfounded. I say to her, 
'Woman, it is a lie you tell me. Both of my boys are 
with their regiments, in the trenches even now, if by 
the grace of the good God they still live/ 

" *No,' she say to me, 'one of your sons hides in the 
hotel of Madame Larue. How do I know this secret. 
Monsieur the wood merchant ? I know because this day 
have I washed the shirt, with his name on it, at the river 
bank. His name, Helois, — the Lieutenant Helois — was 
stamped on the collar and the shirt came from the hotel. 
La Fontaine.' 

*'I tell her that it is a mistake — that it is the great in- 
justice to me she speaks, and that night I dressed in my 
best clothes to penetrate this mystery — to meet this man 
who disgracefully used the name of my son — to expose 
this impostor who would bring shame to the name of 
Helois, the wood merchant, whose two sons have been 
fighting for France these three long years. 

"And so. Monsieur, I meet this man at the hotel. She 
was right. His name was Helois. Here is his card. 
The Lieutenant Louis F. Helois, and he is a lieutenant 
in the United States Army." 

"So it was a mistake," replied the Captain, handing 
the card back to the wood merchant, whose lobster red 
features bore an enigmatical smile. 

"No, — not the mistake, the truth," replied the wood 
merchant. "Not my son — but my grandson — the son of 



142 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

my son — the son of my third son who went to America 
years ago. And now he comes back in the uniform of 
liberty to jfight again for France. Ah, Messieurs les 
OMciers — the sons of France return from the ends of 
the world to fight her cause." 

While the wood merchant was telling us that the 
American grandson had only stopped three days in the 
town and then had moved up to service at the front, the 
air was shattered by a loud report. It was the snap of 
the whip in the hands of the young French amazon, 
standing high on the load of wood. We escorted the 
fuel proudly to the Place de la Republique. Soon the 
fires were burning briskly and the smell of onions and 
coffee and hot chow was on the air. 

The stoves were pitched at the bottom of a stone 
monument in the centre of the square. Bags of potatoes 
and onions and burlap covered quarters of beef and 
other pieces of mess sergeants paraphernalia were piled 
on the steps of the monument, which was covered with 
the green and black scars from dampness and age. 

The plinth supported a stone shaft fifteen feet in 
height, which touched the lower branches of the trees. 
The monument was topped with a huge cross of stone ^! 
on which was the sculptured figure of the Christ. 

Little Sykoff, the battery mess sergeant, stood over 
the stove at the bottom of the monument. He held in 
his hand a frying pan, which he shook back and forth 
over the fire to prevent the sizzling chips in the pan from 
burning. His eyes lowered from an inspection of the^ 
monument and met mine. He smiled. , I 

"Mr. Gibbons," he said, "if that brother of mine, who 
runs the photograph gallery out on Paulina and Madison 
Streets in Chicago, could only see me now, he sure would 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 143 



tell the Rabbi. Can you beat it — a Jew here frying ham 
in the shadow of the Cross." 

It was rather hard to beat — and so was the ham. We 
made this concession as we sat on the plinth of the 
monument and polished our mess kits with bread. And 
such bread — it was the regulation United States army 
issue bread — white, firm and chuck full of nourishment 
— bread that seemed like cake to the French youngsters 
who tasted it and who returned with open mouths and 
outstretched hands for more of the "good white bread.'* 

After the meal, those members of Battery A not de- 
tailed for immediate duty denied themselves none of the 
joys that a new town, in a strange land, holds for a 
soldier. 

Saint-Nicholas-du-Port boasts a remarkable cathedral 
of mediaeval architecture, of enormous dimensions. It 
was crumbling with age, but still housed the holy. Time 
and the elements had left the traces of their rough usage 
upon the edifice. 

Half of the statues on the broad fagade of the cathe- 
dral had been broken, and now the niches afforded domi- 
ciles for families of pigeons. On the ground, in a 
careless pile, to one side of the frontal arch, was an ig- 
nominious pile of miscellaneous arms and legs and heads 
of sculptured figures, resting there in anything but saintly 
dignity. Two of our young artillerymen were standing 
in front of the cathedral surveying it. 

"Certainly is in need of repairs," said one of them. 
"I'll bet they haven't done no bricklaying or plumbing 
on this place since before the Civil War." 

"That ain't hardly the right way to treat old Saints," 
replied his companion, referring to the pile of broken 
statuary. "Seems like they ought to cement the arms 
and legs and heads back on those old boys and old girls 



144 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and put them back on their pedestals. I guess, though, 
there aln*t nobody living to identify the pieces, so they 
could get the right arms and heads on the right bodies.'* 

Our battery had among its drivers an old timer who 
might have been called a historian. His opinion held 
weight in the organisation. He professed to be able 
to read American ball scores and war news out of French 
newspapers, a number of which he always carried. Later 
that day, I heard him lecturing the cathedral critics on 
their lack of appreciation of art and history. 

**New things ain't art," he told them ; "things has got 
to be old before they are artistic. Nobody'd look at 
the Venus dee Milo if she had all her arms on. You 
never hear nobody admiring a modern up-to-date castle 
with electric lighting and bath tubs in it. It simply 
ain't art. 

"Now, this cathedral is art. This country around 
here is just full of history. Here's where whole book 
stores of it was written. Why, say, there was batteries 
of artillery rolling through this country a million years 
ago. It was right around here that Napoleon joined 
forces with Julius Caesar to fight the Crusaders. This 
here is sacred ground." 

In the evening, a number of the battery, located the 
buvette that carried across its curtained front the gold 
lettered sign bar Parisian. It was a find. Some thirty 
American artillerymen crowded around the tables. 

Cigarette smoke filled the low-ceilinged room with 
blue layers, through which the lamp light shone. In one 
corner stood a mechanical piano which swallowed big 
copper sous and gave out discord's metallic melody. It 
was of an American make and the best number on its 
printed programme was "Aren't you Coming Back to Old 
Virginia, Molly?" Sous followed sous into this howitzer 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 145 

of harmony and it knew no rest that night. Everybody 
joined in and helped it out on the choruses. 

Things were going fine when the door opened at about 
nine thirty, and there stood two members of the Amer- 
ican Provost Guard. They carried with them two or- 
ders. One instructed Madame, the proprietress, to dis- 
pense no more red ink or beer to American soldiers that 
night, and the other was a direction to all Americans 
around the table to get back to their billets for the night. 

The bunch left with reluctance but without a grumble. 
It was warm and comfortable within the bar Parisian 
and Madame's smiles and red wine and beer and Camem- 
bert cheese composed the Broadway of many recent 
dreams. But they left without complaint. 

They made their rollicking departure, returning Ma- 
dame*s parting smiles, gallantly lifting their steel hel- 
mets and showering her with vociferous "bong swore' s.** 
And — well it simply must be told. She kissed the last 
one out out the door and, turning, wiped away a tear 
with the corner of her apron. Madame had seen youth 
on the way to the front before. 

The billets were comfortable. Some were better than 
others. Picket line details slept in their blankets in the 
hay over the stables. Gun crews drew beds and pallets 
on the floor in occupied houses. In these homes there 
was always that hour before retirement for the night 
when the old men and remaining women of the French 
household and their several military guests billeted in 
the place, would gather about the fireplace in the kitchen 
and regale one another with stories, recounted by the 
murder of French and English languages and a wealth 
of pantomime. 

Louise, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the town- 
crier — he who daily beat the drum in front of the Hotel 



146 "AND THEY THO UGHT 

de Ville and read lengthy bulletins, was interested in the 
workings of Gunner Black's colt automatic. Gunner 
Black, most anxious to show her, demonstrated the ac- 
tion of the pistol but, forgetting that inevitable shell 
in the chamber, shot himself in the arm. 

It was only an incident. The noise scared Louise, 
but not the wound. She had seen too many Americans 
get shot in the moving pictures. 

The captain and I were quartered in the house of the 
Cure of the cathedral. The old housekeeper of the 
place made the captain blush when she remarked her sur- 
prise that there were such young captains in the Amer- 
ican army. Her name was Madame Dupont, and she 
was more than pleased to learn from the captain that 
that had been the maiden name of his mother. 

The captain's room had the interior dimensions and 
heavy decorations of the mystic inner sanctum of some 
secret grand lodge. Religious paintings and symbols 
hung from the walls, which were papered in dark red to 
match the heavy plush hangings over the ever closed 
windows. 

Two doors in the blank wall swung open revealing a 
hermetically sealed recess in which a bed just fitted. 
This arrangement, quite common in France, indicated 
that the device now popular in two-room sleeping apart- 
ments in America, must have been suggested by the sleep- 
ing customs of mediaeval times. 

Early the next morning, our battery pulled out for the 
front. We were bound for the line. We took the roads 
out of Saint Nicolas to the east, making our way toward 
that part of the front that was known as the Luneville 
sector. Our way lay through the towns of Dombasle, 
Sommerviller, Maixe, Einville, Valhey, Serres, to the 
remains of the ruined village of Hoeville. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 147 

The sector runs almost along the border between 
France and old Lorraine, occupied by the Germans since 
1870. Even the names of the old French towns beyond 
the border had been changed to German in the effort of 
the Prussians to Germanise the stolen province. 

It was in this section during the few days just prior 
to the outbreak of the war that France made unwise 
demonstration of her disinclination toward hostilities 
with Germany. Every soldier in France was under arms, 
as was every soldier in Europe. France had military 
patrols along her borders. In the French chamber of 
deputies, the socialists had rushed through a measure 
which was calculated to convince the German people that 
France had no intentions or desire of menacing German 
territory. By that measure every French soldier was 
withdrawn from the Franco-German border to a line 
ten miles inside of France. The German appreciation 
of this evidence of peacefulness was manifested when 
the enemy, at the outbreak of the war, moved across the 
border and occupied that ten-mile strip of France. 

France had succeeded in driving the enemy back again 
in that part of Lorraine, but only at the cost of many 
lives and the destruction of many French towns and 
villages. Since the close of the fighting season of 1914, 
there had been little or no progress on either side at 
this point. The opposing lines here had been stationary 
for almost three years and it w^as known on both sides 
as a quiet sector. 

The country side was of a rolling character, but very 
damp. At that season of the year when our first Amer- 
ican fighting men reached the Western front, that part 
of the line that they occupied was particularly muddy 
and miserable. 

Before nine o'clock that morning as we rode on to 



148 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

the front, the horse-drawn traffic, including our battery, 
was forced to take the side of the road numerous times 
to permit the passage of long trains of motor trucks 
loaded down with American infantrymen, bound in the 
same direction. 

Most of the motor vehicles were of the omnibus type. 
A number of them were worthy old double-deckers that 
had seen long years of peaceful service on the boulevards 
of Paris before the war. Slats of wood ran lengthwise 
across the windows of the lower seating compartment 
and through these apertures young, sun-burned, Ameri- 
can faces topped with steel helmets, peered forth. 

Some of our men reposed languidly on the rear steps 
of the busses or on the tops. Most of the bus-loads were 
singing rollicking choruses. The men were in good 
spirits. They had been cheered in every village they 
had passed through on the way from their training area. 

"Howdy, bowleg," was the greeting shouted by one 
of these motoring mockers, who looked down on our 
saddled steeds, "better get a hustle on them hayburners. 
We're going to be in Berlin by the time you get where 
the front used to be." 

"Yes, you will," replied one of the mounted artillery- 
men, with a negative inflection. "You'll get a hell of 
a long ways without us. If you doughboys start any- 
thing without the artillery, you'll see Berlin through the 
bars of a prisoner's cage." 

"Lucky pups — the artillery — nothing to do but ride," 
was the passing shout of another taunter, perched high 
on a bus. This was an unanswerable revision of an old 
taunt that the artillery used to shout to passing infantry 
in the days when a foot soldier was really a foot soldier. 
Then the easy-riding mounted troops, when passing an 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT " 149 

infantry column on the road, would say, "Pretty soft 
for the doughboys — nothing to do but walk." 

"Times certainly have changed," one of our battery 
drivers felt it necessary to remark to me in defence of 
his branch of the service. "But there ain't no spark 
plugs or carburetors to get out of order on our mounts. 

"However, we do have our troubles. That runaway 
wheeler in No. 2 section broke away from the picket 
line last night and Kemball and I were detailed to hunt 
all over town for him. 

*'You know that dark, winding, narrow street, that 
winds down the hill back of the cathedral. Well, it 
was about midnight and blacker than the ace of spades, 
when Kemball and I pushed along there in the dark, 
looking for that onery animal. 

"Suddenly, we heard a sharp clatter on the cobble- 
stones half a block up the hill. It was coming our way 
full speed. 'Here he comes now,' said Kemball, 'and 
he's galloping like hell. Jump into a doorway or he'll 
climb all over us.' 

"We waited there pressed against the wall in the dark 
as the galloping came up to us and passed. What dy'e 
s'pose it was ? It wasn't that runaway horse at all. Just 
a couple of them French kids chasing one another in 
wooden shoes." 

The road to the front was a populous one. We passed 
numerous groups of supply wagons carrying food and 
fodder up to the front lines. Other wagons were re- 
turning empty and here and there came an ambulance 
with bulgy blankets outlining the figures of stretcher 
cases, piled two high and two wide. Occasionally a 
Y. M. C. A. runabout loaded down with coffee pots and 
candy tins and driven by helmeted wearers of the Red 



150 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

Triangle, would pass us carrying its store of extras to 
the boys up front. 

We passed through villages where manufacturing 
plants were still in operation and, nearer the front, the 
roads lay through smaller hamlets, shell torn and de- 
serted, save for sentries who stood guard in wooden 
coops at intersections. Civilians became fewer and 
fewer, although there was not a village that did not have 
one or two women or children or old men unfit for uni- 
form. 

Finally the road mounted a rolling hill and here it 
was bordered by roadside screens consisting of stretched 
chicken wire to which whisps of straw and grass and bits 
of green dyed cloth had been attached. Our men riding 
behind the screen peered through apertures in it and saw 
the distant hills forward, from which German glasses 
could have observed all passage along that road had it 
not been for the screen. 

So we moved into position. It was late in the night 
of October 22nd, 19 17, that our batteries of artillery 
and companies of infantry moved through the darkness 
on the last lap of their trip to the front. The roads 
were sticky and gummy. A light rain was falling. The 
guns boomed in front of us, but not with any continued 
intensity. Through streets paved with slippery cobbles 
and bordered with the bare skeletons of shell-wrecked 
houses, our American squads marched four abreast. 
Their passing in the darkness was accompanied by the 
sound of the unhastened tread of man}/ hobnailed boots. 

At times, the rays of a cautiously flashed electric light 
would reveal our infantrymen with packs on back and 
rifles slung over their shoulders. A stiff wind whipped 
the rain into their faces and tugged the bottoms of their 
flapping, wet overcoats. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 151 

Notwithstanding the fact that they had made it on 
foot a number of miles from the place where they had 
disembarked from the motor trucks, the men marched 
along to the soft singing of songs, which were ordered 
discontinued as the marching columns got closer to the 
communicating trenches which led into the front line. 

In the march were machine gun carts hauled by Amer- 
ican mules and rolling kitchens, which at times dropped 
on the darkened road swirls of glowing red embers that 
had to be hurriedly stamped out. Anxious American 
staff officers consulted their wrist watches frequently 
in evidence of the concern they felt as to whether the 
various moving units were reaching designated points 
upon the scheduled minute. 

It was after midnight that our men reached the front 
line. It was the morning of October 23rd, 1917, that 
American infantrymen and Bavarian regiments of 
Landwehr and Landsturm faced one another for the 
first time in front line positions on the European front. 

Less than eight hundred yards of slate and drab-col- 
oured soft ground, blotched with rust-red expanses of 
wire entanglements, separated the hostile lines. 

There was no moon. A few cloud-veiled stars only 
seemed to accentuate the blackness of the night. There, 
in the darkness and the mud, on the slippery firing step 
of trench walls and in damp, foul-smelling dugouts, 
young red-blooded Americans tingled for the first time 
with the thrill that they had trained so long and trav- 
elled so far to experience. 

Through unfortunate management of the Press ar- 
rangements in connection with this great historical event, 
American correspondents accredited by the War Depart- 
ment to our forces, were prevented from accompanying 
our men into the front that night. Good fortune, how- 



ip "AND THEY THOUGHT 

ever, favoured me as one of the two sole exceptions to 
this circumstance. Raymond G. Carroll, correspondent 
of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, and myself, repre- 
senting the Chicago Tribune and its associated papers, 
were the only two newspaper men who went into the 
line with the men that night. For enjoying this unusual 
opportunity, we were both arrested several days later, 
not, however, until after we had obtained the first-hand 
story of the great event. 

A mean drizzle of rain was falling that night, but it 
felt cool on the pink American cheeks that were hot with 
excitement. The very wetness of the air impregnated 
all it touched with the momentousness of the hour. 
Spirits were high and the mud was deep, but we who 
were there had the feeling that history was chiselling that 
night's date into her book of ages. 

Occasionally a shell wheezed over through the soggy 
atmosphere, seeming to leave an unseen arc in the dark- 
ness above. It would terminate with a sullen thump in 
some spongy, water-soaked mound behind us. Then an 
answering missive of steel would whine away into the 
populated invisibility in front of us. 

French comrades, in half English and half French, 
gushed their congratulations, and shook us by the hand. 
Some of us were even hugged and kissed on both cheeks. 
Our men took the places of French platoons that were 
sent back to rest billets. But other French platoons 
remained shoulder to shoulder with our men in the front 
line. The presence of our troops there was in continu- 
ation of their training for the purpose of providing a 
nucleus for the construction oi later contingents. Both 
our infantry and our artillery acted in conjunction with 
the French infantry and artillery and the sector remained 
under French command. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 153 



Our men were eager to ask questions and the French 
were ever ready to respond. They first told us about 
the difference in the sound of shells. Now that one that 
started with a bark in back of us and whined over our 
heads is a depart. It is an Allied shell on its way to the 
Germans. Now, this one, that whines over first and 
ends with a distant grunt, like a strong wallop on a 
wet carpet, is an arrivee. It has arrived from Germany. 
In the dugouts, our men smoked dozens of cigarettes, 
lighting fresh ones from the half-consumed butts. It is 
the appetite that comes with the progressive realisation 
of a long deferred hope. It is the tension that comes 
from at last arriving at an object and then finding noth- 
ing to do, now that you are there. It is the nervousness 
that nerveless youth suffers in inactivity. 

The men sloshed back and forth through the mud 
along the narrow confines of the trench. The order is 
against much movement, but immobility is unbearable. 
Wet slickers rustle against one another in the narrow 
traverses, and equipment, principally the French and 
English gas masks, hanging at either hip become en- 
tangled in the darkness. 

At times a steel helmet falls from some unaccustomed 
head and, hitting perhaps a projecting rock in the trench 
wall, gives forth a clang w^hich is followed by curses 
from its clumsy owner and an admonition of quiet from 
some young lieutenant. 

"Olson, keep your damn fool head down below the 
top of that trench or you'll get it blown off." The ser- 
geant is talking, and Olson, who brought from Minne- 
sota a keen desire to see No Man's Land even at the risk 
of his life, is forced to repress the yearning. 

*Two men over in B Company just got holes drilled 
through their beans for doing the same thing,'* contin- 



154 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

ued the sergeant. ''There's nothing you can see out 
there anyhow. It's all darkness.'* 

Either consciously or unconsciously, the sergeant was 
lying, for the purpose of saving Olson and others from 
a fool's fate. There was not a single casualty in any 
American unit on the line that first night. 

'Where is the telephone dugout?" a young lieutenant 
asked his French colleague. 'T want to speak to the 
battalion commander." 

"But you must not speak English over the telephone," 
replied the Frenchman, "the Germans will hear you with 
the instruments they use to tap the underground cir- 
cuit." 

"But I w^s going to use our American code," said the 
front line novice; "if the Germans tap in they won't be 
able to figure out what it means." 

"Ah, no, my friend," replied the Frenchman, smiling. 
"They won't know what the message means, but your 
voice and language will mean to them that Americans 
are occupying the sector in front of them, and we want 
to give them that information in another way, n'est ce 
pasr 

Undoubtedly there was some concern in the German 
trenches just over the way with regard to what was 
taking place in our lines. Relief periods are ticklish 
intervals for the side making them. It is quite possible 
that some intimation of our presence may have been 
given. 

There was considerable conversation and movement 
among our men that night. Jimmy found it frequently 
necessary to call the attention of Johnny to some new 
thing he had discovered. And of a consequence, much 
natural, but needless, chattering resulted. 

I believe the Germans did become nervous because they 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 155 

made repeated attacks on the enveloping darkness with 
numbers of star shells. These aerial beauties of night 
warfare released from their exploding encasements high 
in the air, hung from white silk parachutes above the 
American amateurs. 

The numerous company and battery jesters did not 
refrain from imitative expressions of "Ahs" and **Ohs" 
and ''Ain't it bootiful?" as their laughing upturned faces 
were illuminated in the white light. 

That night one rocket went up shortly before morn- 
ing. It had a different effect from its predecessors. It 
reared itself from the darkness somewhere on the left. 
Its flight was noiseless as it mounted higher and higher 
on its fiery staff. Then it burst in a shower of green 
balls of fire. 

That meant business. One green rocket was the signal 
that the Germans were sending over gas shells. It was 
an alarm that meant the donning of gas masks. On they 
went quickly. It was the first time this equipment had 
been adjusted under emergency conditions, yet the men 
appeared to have mastered the contrivances. 

Then the word was passed along the trenches and 
through the dugouts for the removal of the masks. It 
had not been a French signal. The green rocket had 
been sent up by the Germans. The enemy was using 
green rockets that night as a signal of their own. There 
had been no gas shells. It was a false alarm. 

'The best kind of practice in the world," said one of 
our battalion commanders; "it's just the stuff we're here 
for. I hope the Germans happen to do that every night 
a new bunch of our men get in these trenches." 

While the infantry were experiencing these initial 
thrills in the front line, our gunners were struggling in 
the mud of the black gun pits to get their pieces into 



156 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

position in the quickest possible time, and achieve the 
honour of firing that first American shot in the war. 

Each battery worked feverishly in intense competition 
with every other battery. Battery A of the 6th Field, 
io which I had attached myself, lost in the race for the 
honour. Another battery in the same regiment accom- 
plished the achievement. 

That was Battery C of the 6th Field Artillery. I am 
reproducing, herewith, for what I believe is the first 
time, the exact firing data on that shot and the ofBcers 
and men who took part in it. 

By almost superhuman work through the entire pre- 
vious day and night, details of men from Battery C had 
pulled one cannon by ropes across a muddy, almost im- 
passable, meadow. So anxious were they to get off the 
first shot that they did not stop for meals. 

They managed to drag the piece into an old abandoned 
French gun pit. The historical position of that gun was 
one kilometre due east of the town of Bathelemont and 
three hundred metres northeast of the Bauzemont-Bath- 
elemont road. The position was located two miles from 
the old international boundary line between France and 
German-Lorraine. The position was one and one-half 
kilometres back of the French first line, then occupied 
by Americans. 

The first shot was fired at 6 :5 :io A. M., October 23rd, 
19 1 7. Those who participated in the firing of the shot 
were as follows : 

Lieutenant F. M. Mitchell, U.S.R., acted as platoon chief. 
Corporal Robert Braley laid the piece. 
Sergeant Elward Warthen loaded the piece. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 157 

Sergeant Frank Grabowski prepared the fuse for cutting. 
Private Louis Varady prepared the fuse for cutting. 
Private John J. Wodarczak prepared the fuse for cutting. 
Corporal Osborne W. De Varila prepared the fuse for 
cutting. 

Sergeant Lonnie Domonick cut the fuse. 

Captain Idus R. McLendon gave the command to fire. 

Sergeant Alex L. Arch fired first shot. 

The missile fired was a 75 millimetre or 3-inch high- 
explosive shell. The target wsls a German battery of 
150 milimetre or 6-inch guns located tv^ro kilometres back 
of the German first line trenches, and one kilometre in 
back of the boundary line betv^een France and German- 
Lorraine. The position of that enemy battery on the 
map v^as in a field 100 metres v^est of the tov^n v^hich 
the French still call Xanrey, but v^hich the Germans have 
called Schenris since they took it from France in 1870. 
Near that spot — and damn near — fell the first American 
shell fired in the great war. 

Note: It is peculiar to note that I am writing this 
chapter at Atlantic City, October 23rd, 1918, just one 
year to the day after the event. That shot surely started 
something. 



158 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

CHAPTER Vni 

THE FIRST AMERICAN SECTOR 

It was in the Luneville sector, described in the pre- 
ceding chapter, that the first American fighting men 
faced the Germans on the western front. It was there 
that the enemy captured its first American prisoners 
in a small midnight raid ; it was there that we captured 
some prisoners of theirs, and inflicted our first German 
casualties; it was there that the first American fighting 
man laid down his life on the western front. 

In spite of these facts, however, the occupation of 
those front line posts in that sector constituted nothing 
more than a post-graduate course in training under the 
capable direction of French instructors who advised our 
ofiicers and men in everything they did. 

At the conclusion of the course, which extended over 
a number of weeks, the American forces engaged in it 
were withdrawn from the line and retired for a well- 
earned rest period and for reorganisation purposes in 
areas back of the line. There they renewed equipment 
and prepared for the occupation of the first ail-American 
sector on the western front. 

That sector was located in Lorraine some distance to 
the east of the Luneville front. It was north and slightly 
west of the city of Toul. It was on the east side of the 
St. Mihiel salient, then occupied by the Germans. 

The sector occupied a position in what the French 
called the Pont-a-Mousson front. Our men were to oc- 
cupy an eight-mile section of the front line trenches ex- 
tending from a point west of the town of Flirey, to a 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" ijg 

point west of the ruins of the town of Seicheprey. The 
position was not far from the French stronghold of 
Verdun to the northwest or the German stronghold of 
Metz to the northeast, and was equidistant from both. 

That line changed from French blue to American 
khaki on the night of January 21st. The sector became 
American at midnight. I watched the men as they 
marched into the line. In small squads they proceeded 
silently up the road toward the north, from which di- 
rection a raw wind brought occasional sounds resembling 
the falling of steel plates on the wooden floor of a long 
corridor. 

A half moon doubly ringed by mist, made the hazy 
night look grey. At intervals, phantom flashes flushed 
the sky. The mud of the roadway formed a colourless 
paste that made marching not unlike skating on a platter 
of glue. 

This was their departure for the front — this particular 
battalion — the first battalion of the i6th United States 
Infantry. I knew, and every man in it knew, what was 
before them. 

Each man was in for a long tour of duty in trenches 
knee-deep with melted snow and mud. Each platoon 
commander knew the particular portion of that battle^ 
battered bog into which he must lead his men. Each 
company commander knew the section of shell-punc- 
tured, swamp land that was his to hold, and the battalion 
commander, a veteran American soldier, was well aware 
of the particular perils of the position which his one 
thousand or morp men were going to occupy in the very 
jaw- joint of a narrowing salient. 

All branches of the United States military forces may 
take special pride in that first battalion that went into 
the new American line that night. The commander 



i6o "AND THEY THOUGHT 

represented the U. S. Officers Reserve Corps, and the 
other officers and men were from the reserves, the reg- 
ulars, West Point, the National Guard and the National 
Army. Moreover, the organisation comprised men from 
all parts of the United States as well as men whose par- 
ents had come from almost every race and nationality 
in the world. One company alone possessed such a 
babble of dialects among its new Americans, that it 
proudly called itself, the Foreign Legion. 

For two days the battalion had rested in the mud of 
the semi-destroyed village of Ansauville, several miles 
back of the front. A broad, shallow stream, then at 
the flood, wound through and over most of the village 
site. Walking anywhere near the border of the water, 
one pulled about with him pounds of tenacious, black 
gumbo. Dogs and hogs, ducks and horses, and men, — 
all were painted with nature's handiest camouflage. 

Where the stream left the gaping ruins of a stone 
house on the edge of the village, there was a well-kept 
French graveyard, clinging to the slope of a small hill. 
Above the ruins of the hamlet, stood the steeple of the 
old stone church, from which it was customary to ring 
the alarm when the Germans sent over their shells of 
poison gas. 

Our officers busied themselves with unfinished sup- 
ply problems. Such matters as rubber boots for the men, 
duck boards for the trenches, food for the mules, and 
ration containers necessary for the conveyance of hot 
food to the front lines, were not permitted to interfere 
with the battalion's movements. In war, there is al- 
ways the alternative oi doing without or doing with 
makeshifts, and that particular battalion commander, 
after three years of war, was the kind of a soldier who 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 161 

made the best of circumstances no matter how adverse 
they may have been. 

That commander was Major Griffiths. He was an 
American fighting man. His military record began in 
the Philippine Insurrection, when, as a sergeant in a 
Tennessee regiment of National Guard, he was men- 
tioned in orders for conspicuous gallantry. At the sup- 
pression of the insurrection, he became a major in the 
United States Constabulary in the Philippines. He re- 
signed his majority in 19 14, entered the Australian 
forces, and was wounded with them in the bloody landing 
at Gallipoli. He was invalided to England, where, upon 
his partial recovery, he was promoted to major in the 
British forces and was sent to France in command of a 
battalion of the Sherwood Foresters. With them, he 
received two more wounds, one at the Battle of Ypres, 
and another during the fighting around Loos. 

He was in an English hospital when America entered 
the war, but he hurried his convalescence and obtained 
a transfer back to the army of his own country. He 
hadn't regained as yet the full use of his right hand, his 
face still retained a hospital pallor, and an X-ray photo- 
graph of his body revealed the presence of numerous 
pieces of shell still lodged there. But on that night 
of January 21st, he could not conceal the pride that he 
felt in the honour in having been the one chosen to com- 
mand the battalion of Americans that was to take over 
the first American sector in France. Major Griffiths 
survived those strenuous days on the Pont-a-Mousson 
front, but he received a fatal wound three months later 
at the head of his battalion in front of Catigny, in 
Picardy. He died fighting under his own flag. 

Just before daylight failed that wintry day, three 
poilus walked down the road from the front and into 



i62 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

Ansauville. Two of them were helping a third, whose 
bandaged arm and shoulder explained the mission of 
the party. As they passed the rolling kitchens where 
the Americans were receiving their last meal before en- 
tering the trenches, there was silence and not even an 
exchange of greetings or smiles. 

This lack of expression only indicated the depth of 
feeling stirred by the appearance of this wounded French 
soldier. The incident, although comparatively trivial, 
seemed to arouse within our men a solemn grimness and 
a more fervent determination to pay back the enemy 
in kind. In silence, our men finished that last meal, 
which consisted of cold corned beef, two slices of dry 
bread per man, and coffee. 

The sight of that one wounded man did not make our 
boys realise more than they already did, what was in 
front of them. They had already made a forty mile 
march over frozen roads up to this place and had in- 
curred discomforts seemingly greater than a shell-shat- 
tered arm or a bullet-fractured shoulder. After that 
gruelling hiking experience, it was a pleasant prospect to 
look forward to a chance of venting one's feelings on 
the enemy. 

At the same time, no chip-on-the-shoulder cockiness 
marked the disposition of these men about to take first 
grips with the Germans, — no challenging bravado was 
revealed in the actions or statements of these grim, 
serious trail-blazers of the American front, whose atti- 
tude appeared to be one of soldierly resignation to the 
first martial principle, "Orders is orders." 

As the companies lined up in the village street in 
full marching order, awaiting the command to move, 
several half-hearted attempts at jocularity died cold. 
One irrepressible made a futile attempt at frivolity by 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 163 

announcing that he had Cherokee blood in his veins and 
was so tough he could "spit battleships." This attempted 
jocularity drew as much mirth as an undertaker's final 
invitation to the mourners to take the last, long look at 
the departed. 

One bright-faced youngster tingling with the thrill of 
anticipation, leaped on a gun carriage and absently 
whistled a shrill medley, beginning with "Yaka-hula," 
and ending with "Just a Song at Twilight." There was 
food for thought in the progress of his efforts from the 
frivolous to the pensive, but there was little time for such 
thoughts. No one even told him to shut up. 

While there was still light, an aerial battle took place 
overhead. For fifteen minutes, the French anti-aircraft 
guns banged away at three German planes, which were 
audaciously sailing over our lines. The Americans 
rooted like bleacherites for the guns but the home team 
failed to score, and the Germans sailed serenely home. 
They apparently had had time to make adequate observa- 
tions. 

During the entire afternoon, German sausage balloons 
had hung high in the air back of the hostile line, offering 
additional advantages for enemy observation. On the 
highroad leading from Ansauville, a conspicuous sign 
Uenemie vous voit informed newcomers that German 
eyes were watching their movements and could interfere 
at any time with a long range shell. The fact was 
that the Germans held high ground and their glasses 
could command almost all of the terrain back of our 
lines. 

Under this seemingly eternal espionage punctuated at 
intervals by heavy shelling, several old women of the 
village had remained in their homes, living above the 
ground on quiet days and moving their knitting to the 



i64 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

front yard dugout at times when gas and shell and bomb 
interfered. Some of these women operated small shops 
in the front rooms of their damaged homes and the 
Americans lined up in front of the window counters 
and exchanged dirty French paper money for canned 
pate de foi gras or jars of mustard. 

A machine gun company with mule-drawn carts led the 
movement from Ansauville into the front. It was fol- 
lowed at fifty yard intervals by other sections. Progress 
down that road was executed in small groups — it was 
better to lose one whole section than an entire com- 
pany. 

That highroad to the front, with its border of shell- 
withered trees, was revealed that night against a bluish 
grey horizon occasionally rimmed with red. Against 
the sky, the moving groups were defined as impersonal 
black blocks. Young lieutenants marched chead of each 
platoon. In the hazy light, it was difficult to distinguish 
them. The only difference was that their hips seemed 
bulkier from the heavy sacks, field glasses, map cases, 
canteens, pistol holsters and cartridge clips. 

Each section, as it marched out of the village, passed 
under the eye of Major Griffiths, who sat on his horse 
in the black shadow of a wall. A sergeant commanding 
one section was coming toward him. 

''Halt !" ordered the Major. "Sergeant, where is your 
helmet?" 

*'One of the men in my section is wearing it, sir,*' 
replied the Sergeant. 

''Why?" snapped the Major. 

"Somebody took his and he hadn't any," said the 
Sergeant, "so I made him wear mine, sir." 

"Get it back and wear it yourself," the Major ordered. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 165 

"Nothing could hurt the head of a man who couldn't 
hang on to his own helmet." 

The order was obeyed, the section marched on and a 
bareheaded Irishman out of hearing of the Major said. 
"I told the Sergeant not to make me wear it; I don't 
need the damn thing." 

Another section passed forward, the moonlight gleam- 
ing on the helmets jauntily cocked over one ear and 
casting black shadows over the faces of the wearers. 
From these shadows glowed red dots of fire. 

"Drop those cigarettes," came the command from the 
all watchful, unseen presence mounted on the horse in the 
shadow of the wall. Automatically, the section spouted 
red arcs that fell to the road on either side in a shower 
of sparks. 

"It's a damn shame to do that." Major Griffith spoke 
to me standing beside his horse. "You can't see a 
cigarette light fifty yards away, but if there were no 
orders against smoking, the men would be lighting 
matches or dumping pipes, and such flashes can be seen." 

There was need for caution. The enemy was always 
watchful for an interval when one organisation was re- 
lieving another on the line. That period represented 
the time when an attack could cause the greatest confu- 
sion in the ranks of the defenders. But that night our 
men accomplished the relief of the French Moroccan 
division then in the line without incident. 

Two nights later, in company with a party of corre- 
spondents, I paid a midnight visit to our men in the 
front line trenches of that first American sector. With 
all lights out, cigarettes tabooed and the siren silenced, 
our overloaded motor slushed slowly along the shell- 
pitted roads, carefully skirting groups of marching men 



i66 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and lumbering supply wagons that took shape suddenly 
out of the mist-laden road in front of us. 

Although it was not raining, moisture seemed to drip 
from everything, and vapours from the ground, mixing 
with the fog overhead, almost obscured the hard-working 
moon. 

In the greyness of the night sight and smell lost their 
keenness, and familiar objects assumed unnatural forms, 
grotesque and indistinct. 

From somewhere ahead dull, muffled thumps in the mist 
brought memories of spring house cleaning and the dust- 
ing out of old cushions, but it was really the three-year- 
old song of the guns. Nature had censored observation 
by covering the spectacle with the mantle of indefinite- 
ness. Still this was the big thing we had come to see — 
night work in and behind the front lines of the Ameri- 
can sector. 

We approached an engineers' dump, where the phan- 
toms of fog gradually materialised into helmeted khaki 
figures that moved in mud knee-deep and carried boxes 
and planks and bundles of tools. Total silence covered 
all the activity and not a ray of light revealed what mys- 
teries had been worked here in surroundings that seemed 
no part of this world. 

An irregular pile of rock loomed grey and sinister 
before us, and, looking upward, we judged, from its 
gaping walls, that it was the remains of a church steeple. 
It was the dominating ruin in the town of Beaumont. 

"Turn here to the left," the officer conducting our party 
whispered into the ear of the driver. 

The sudden execution of the command caused the offi- 
cer's helmet to rasp against that of the driver with a 
sound that set the cautious whispering to naught. 

"Park here in the shadow," he continued. "Make no 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 167 

noise ; show no light. They dropped shells here ten min- 
utes ago. Gentlemen, this is regimental headquarters. 
Follow me." 

In a well buttressed cellar, surmounted by a pile of 
ruins, we found the colonel sitting at a wooden table in 
front of a grandfather's clock of scratched mahogany. 
He called the roll — five special correspondents, Captain 
Chandler, American press officer, with a goatee and fur 
coat to match ; Captain Vielcastel, a French press officer, 
who is a marquis and speaks English, and a lieutenant 
from brigade headquarters, who already had been named 
''Whispering Willie." 

The colonel offered sticks to those with the cane habit. 
With two runners in the lead, we started down what had 
been the main street of the ruined village. 

"I can't understand the dropping of that shell over 
here to-night," the colonel said. *'When we relieved the 
French, there had been a long-standing agreement against 
such discourtesy. It's hard to believe the Boche would 
make a scrap of paper out of that agreement. They must 
have had a new gunner on the piece. We sent back two 
shells into their regimental headquarters. They have 
been quiet since." 

Ten minutes' walk through the mud, and the colonel 
stopped to announce : "Within a hundred yards of you, a 
number of men are working. Can you hear 'em?" 

No one could, so he showed us a long line of sweating 
Americans stretching off somewhere into the fog. Their 
job was more of the endless trench digging and improv- 
ing behind the lines. While one party swung pick and 
spade in the trenches, relief parties slept on the ground 
nearby. The colonel explained that these parties arrived 
after dark, worked all night, and then carefully camou- 
flaged all evidences of new earth and departed before 



i68 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

daylight, leaving no trace of their night's work to be dis- 
covered by prying airman. Often the work was carried 
on under an intermittent shelling, but that night only 
two shells had landed near them. 

An American-manned field gun shattered the silence, 
so close to us that we could feel its breath and had a 
greater respect for its bite. The proximity of the gun 
had not even been guessed by any of our party. A yel- 
low stab of flame seemed to burn the mist through which 
the shell screeched on its way toward Germany. 

Correspondent Junius Woods, who was wearing an 
oversized pair of hip rubber boots, immediately strapped 
the tops to his belt. 

"I am taking no chance," he said; *'I almost jumped 
out of them that time. They ought to send men out with 
a red flag before they pull off a blast like that." 

The colonel then left us and with the whispering lieu- 
tenant and runners in advance, we continued toward the 
front. 

"Walk in parties of two," was the order of the soft- 
toned subaltern. "Each party keep ten yards apart. 
Don't smoke. Don't talk. This road is reached by their 
field pieces. They also cover it with indirect machine 
gun fire. They sniped the brigade commander right 
along here this morning. He had to get down into the 
mud. I can afford to lose some of you, but not the en- 
tire party. If anything comes over, you are to jump 
into the communicating trenches on the right side of 
the road." 

His instructions were obeyed and it was almost with 
relief that, ten minutes later, we followed him down the 
sHppery side of the muddy bank and landed in front of 
a dugout. 

In the long, narrow, low-ceilinged shelter which com- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 169 

pletely tunnelled the road at a depth of twenty feet, two 
twenty-year-old Americans were hugging a brazier filled 
with charcoal. In this dugout was housed a group from 
a machine gun battalion, some of whose members were 
snoring in a double tier of bunks on the side. 

Deep trenches at the other end of the dugout led to 
the gun pits, where this new arm of the service operated 
at ranges of two miles. These special squads fired over 
the heads of those in front of them or over the contours 
of the ground and put down a leaden barrage on the 
front line of the Germans. The firing not only w^as in- 
direct but was without correction from the rectifying 
observation, of which the artillery had the benefit by 
watching the burst of their missiles. 

Regaining the road, we walked on through the ruins 
on the edge of the village of Seicheprey, where our way 
led through a drunken colony of leaning walls and brick 
piles. 

Here was the battalion headquarters, located under- 
neath the old stones of a barn which was topped by the 
barest skeleton of a roof. What had been the first floor 
of the structure had been weighted down heavily with 
railroad iron and concrete to form the roof of the com- 
mander's dugout. The sides of the decrepit structure 
bulged outward and were prevented from bursting by 
timber props radiating on all sides like the legs of a centi- 
pede. A mule team stood in front of the dugout. 

'What's that?" the whispering lieutenant inquired in 
hushed tones from a soldier in the road, as he pointed 
over the mules to the battalion headquarters. 

''What's what?" the soldier replied without respect. 

The obscurity of night is a great reducer of ranks. 
In the mist officer and man look alike. 

"Why, that ?" repeated "Whispering Willie" in lower, 



lyo "AND THEY THOUGHT 

but angrier tones. "What's that there?" he reiterated, 
pointing at the mules. 

"Can't you see it's mules?" replied the man in an im- 
moderate tone of voice, betraying annoyance. 

We were spared what followed. The lieutenant un- 
doubtedly confirmed his rank, and the man undoubtedly 
proffered unto him the respect withheld by mistake. When 
"Whispering Willie" joined us several minutes later in 
the dugout, his helmet rode on the back of his head, but 
his dignity was on straight. 

The Battalion Commander, Major Griffith, was so glad 
to see us that he sent for another bottle of the murky 
grey water that came from a well on one side of a well 
populated graveyard not fifty yards from his post. 

"A good night," he said; "haven't seen it so quiet in 
three years. We have inter-battalion relief on. Some 
new companies are taking over the lines. Some of them 
are new to the front trenches and I'm going out with 
you and put them up on their toes. Wait till I report 
in." 

He rang the field telephone on the wall and waited 
for an answer. An oil lamp hung from a low ceiling over 
the map table. In the hot, smoky air we quietly held 
our places while the connection was made. 

"Hello," the Major said, "operator, connect me with 
Milwaukee." Another wait 

"Hello, Milwaukee, this is Larson. I'm talking from 
Hamburg. I'm leaving this post with a deck of cards 
and a runner. If you want me you can get me at Coney 
Island or Hinky Dink's. Wurtzburger will sit in here." 

"Some code. Major," Lincoln Eyre, correspondent, 
said. "What does a pack of cards indicate ?" 

"Why, anybody who comes out here when he doesn't 
have to is a funny card," the Major replied, "and it looks 




GRAVE OF riRST AMERICAN KILLED IN FRANCE 



Translation: Here Lie the First Soldiers of the Great Republic 
of the United States of America, Fallen on French Soil for 
Justice and for Liberty, November 3rd, 1917 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 171 

as if I have a pack of them to-night. Fritz gets quite a 
few things that go over our wires and we get lots of his. 
All are tapped by induction. 

"Sometimes the stuff we get is important and some- 
times it isn't. Our wire tapping report last night car- 
ried a passage something like this : — The German opera- 
tor at one post speaking to the operator at another said : 

" *Hello, Herman, where did that last shell drop ?' 

^'Second operator replied, /It killed two men in a ra- 
tion party in a communicating trench and spilt all the 
soup. No hot food for you to-night, Rudolph.' 

"Herman replying: That's all right. We have got 
some beer here.* 

"Then there was a confusion of sounds and a German 
was heard talking to some one in his dugout. He said : 

" *Hurry, here comes the lieutenant ! Hide the can !' 

"That's the way it goes," added the Major, "but if 
we heard that the society editor of the Fliegende Blaetter 
and half a dozen pencil strafers were touring the Ger- 
man front line, we'd send 'em over something that would 
start 'em humming a hymn of hate. If they knew I was 
joy riding a party of correspondents around the diggin's 
to-night, they might give you something to write about 
and cost me a platoon or two. You're not worth it. 
Come on." 

Our party now numbered nine and we pushed off, 
stumbling through uneven lanes in the centre of dimly 
lit ruins. According to orders, we carried gas masks in 
a handy position. 

This sector had a nasty reputation when it comes to 
that sample of Teutonic culture. Fritz's poison shells 
dropped almost noiselessly and, without a report, broke 
open, liberating to enormous expansion the inclosed gases. 
These spread in all directions, and, owing to the lowness 



172 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and dampness of the terrain, the poison clouds were im- 
perceptible both to sight or smell. They clung close to 
the ground to claim unsuspecting victims. 

"How are we to know if we are breathing gas or not?'* 
asked the Philadelphia correspondent, Mr. Henri Bazin. 

'That's just what you don't know," replied the Major. 

"Then when will we know it is time to adjust our 
masks?" Bazin persisted. 

"When you see some one fall who has breathed it," 
the Major said. 

"But suppose we breathe it first?" 

"Then you won't need a mask," the Major replied, 
"You see, it's quite simple." 

"Halt!" The sharp command, coming sternly but 
not too loud from somewhere in the adjacent mist, 
brought the party to a standstill in the open on the edge 
of the village. We remained notionless while the Major 
advanced upon command from the unseen. He rejoined 
us in several minutes with the remark that the challenge 
had come from one of his old men, and he only hoped 
the new companies taking over the line that night were 
as much on their jobs. 

"Relief night always is trying," the Major explained. 
"Fritz always likes to jump the newcomers before they 
get the lay of the land. He tried it on the last relief, 
but we burnt him." 

While talking the Major was leading the way through 
the first trench I had ever seen above the surface of the 
ground. The bottom of the trench was riot only on a 
level with the surrounding terrain, but in some places 
it was even higher. Its walls, which rose almost to the 
height of a man's head, were made of large wicker woven 
cylinders filled with earth and stones. 

Our guide informed us that the land which we were 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 173 

traversing was so low that any trench dug in the ground 
would simply be a ditch brimful of undrainable water, 
so that, inasmuch as this position was in the first line 
system, walls had been built on either side of the path to 
protect passers-by from shell fragments and indirect ma- 
chine gun fire. We observed one large break where a 
shell had entered during the evening. 

Farther on, this communicating passage, which was 
more corridor than trench, reached higher ground and 
descended into the earth. We reeled through its zig- 
zag course, staggering from one slanting corner to 
another. 

The sides were fairly well retained by French wicker 
work, but every eighth or tenth duck board was missing, 
making it necessary for trench travellers to step knee-deep 
in cold water or to jump the gap. Correspondent Eyre, 
who was wearing shoes and putteeS, abhorred these 
breaks. 

We passed the Major's post of command, which he 
used during intense action, and some distance on, entered 
the front line. With the Major leading, we walked up to 
a place where two Americans were standing on a firing 
step with their rifles extended across the parapet. They 
were silently peering into the grey mist over No Man's 
Land. One of them looked around as we approached. 
Apparently he recognised the Major's cane as a symbol 
of rank. He came to attention. 

''Well," the Major said, ''is this the way you let us 
walk up on you? Why don't you challenge me?" 

"I saw you was an officer, sir," the man replied. 

"Now, you are absolutely sure I am your officer?" 
the Major said slowly and coldly, with emphasis on the 
word "your." "Suppose I tell you I am a German officer 



174 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and these men behind me are Germans. How do you 
know?" 

With a quick movement the American brought his 
rifle forward to the challenge, his right hand slapping the 
wooden butt with an audible whack. 

"Advance one, and give the countersign," he said with 
a changed voice and manner and the Major, moving to 
within whispering distance, breathed the word over the 
man's extended bayonet. Upon hearing it, the soldier 
lowered his gun and stood at attention. 

It was difficult to figure whether his relief over the 
scare was greater than his fears of the censure he knew 
was coming. 

"Next time anybody gets that close to you without 
being challenged," the Major said, "don't be surprised 
if it is a German. That's the way they do it. They don't 
march in singing ^Deutschland Uber Alles.' 

"If you see them first, you might live through the war. 
If they see you first, we will have wasted a lot of Lib- 
erty bonds and effort trying to make a soldier out of you. 
Now, remember, watch yourself." 

We pushed on encountering longer patches of trench 
where duck boards were entirely missing and where the 
v/ading sometimes was knee-deep. In some places, either 
the pounding of shells or the thawing out of the ground 
had pushed in the revetments, appreciably narrowing the 
way and making progress more difficult. Arriving at an 
unmanned firing step large enough to accommodate the 
party, we mounted and took a first look over the top. 

Moonlight now was stronger through the mist which 
hung fold over fold over the forbidden land between the 
opposing battle Hues. At intervals nervous machine guns 
chattered their ghoulish gibberish or tut-tut-ted away 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 17^ 

chidingly like finicky spinsters. Their intermittent sput- 
tering to the right and left of us was unenlightening. We 
couldn't tell whether they were speaking German or Eng- 
lish. Occasional bullets whining somewhere through that 
wet air gave forth sounds resembling the ripping of linen 
sheets. 

Artillery fire was the exception during the entire night 
but when a shell did trace its unseen arc through the mist 
mantle, its echoes gave it the sound of a street car grind- 
ing through an under-river tunnel or the tube reverbera- 
tions of a departing subway train. 

We were two hundred yards from the German front 
lines. Between their trenches and ours, at this point, was 
low land, so boggy as to be almost impassable. The op- 
posing lines hugged the tops of two small ridges. 

Fifty yards in front was our wire barely discernible 
in the fog. The Major interrupted five wordless reveries 
by expressing, with what almost seemed regretfulness, 
the fact that in all his fighting experience he had never 
seen it "so damn quiet." His observation passed without 
a remark from us. 

The Major appeared to be itching for action and he got 
into ofHcial swing a hundred yards farther on, where a 
turn in the trench revealed to us the muflied figures of 
two young Americans, comfortably seated on grenade 
boxes on the firing step. 

From their easy positions they could look over the top 
and watch all approaches without rising. Each one had 
a blanket wrapped about his legs and feet. They looked 
the picture of ease. Without moving, one, with his rifle 
across his lap, challenged the Major, advanced him, and 
received the countersign. We followed the Major in tim^ 
to hear his first remark : 



176 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"Didn't they get the rocking chairs out here yet?" he 
said with the provoked air that customarily accompanies 
any condemnation of the quartermaster department. 

"No, sir," replied the seated sentry. "They didn't get 
here. The men we relieved said that they never got any- 
thing out here." 

"Nor the footstools?" the Major continued, this time 
with an unmistakable tone. 

The man didn't answer. 

"Do you two think you are taking moon baths on the 
Riviera?" the Major asked sternly. "You are less than 
two hundred yards from the Germans. You are all 
wrapped up like Egyptian mummies. Somebody could 
lean over the top and snake off your head with a trench 
knife before you could get your feet loose. Take those 
blankets off your feet and stand up." 

The men arose with alacrity, shedding the blankets and 
removing the grenade box chairs. The Major continued : 

"You know you are not sitting in a club window in 
Fifth Avenue and watching the girls go by. You're not 
looking for chickens out there. There's a hawk over 
there and sometimes he carries off precious little lambs. 
Now, the next time anybody steps around the corner of 
that trench, you be on your feet with your bayonet and 
gun ready to mix things." 

The lambs saluted as the Major moved off with a train 
of followers who, by this time, were beginning to feel 
that these trenches held other lambs, only they carried 
notebooks instead of cartridge belts. 

Stopping in front of a dugout, the Major gathered us 
about to hear the conversation that was going on within. 
Through the cracks of the door, we looked down a flight 
of steep stairs, dug deep into this battlefield graveyard. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 177 

There were lights in the chamber below and the sound of 
voices came up to us. One voice was singing softly. 

"Oh, the infantry, the infantry, with the dirt behind their 

ears, 
The infantry, the infantry, they don't get any beers, 
The cavalry, the artillery, and the lousy engineers. 
They couldn't lick the infantry in a hundred million years." 

"I got a brother in the artillery," came another voice, 
"but I am ready to disown him. They talk a lot about this 
counter battery work, but it's all bunk. A battery in po- 
sition has nice deep dugouts and hot chow all the time. 
They gets up about 9 o'clock in the morning and shaves 
up all nice for the day. 

" 'Bout 10 o'clock the captain says, T guess we will 
drop a few shells on that German battery on the other 
side of the hill.' So they pops off forty or fifty rounds 
in that general direction and don't hit anything 'cause the 
German battery immediately roots down into its nice, deep 
dugouts. As soon as our battery lays off and gets back 
into its holes, the German battery comes out and pops 
back forty or fifty at 'em and, of course, don't hurt them 
neither. 

*Then it is time for lunch, and while both of these here 
batteries is eating, they get so sore about not having hit 
each other during the morning, that they just call off 
counter battery work for the day and turn their guns 
on the front lines and blow hell out of the infantry. I 
haven't got any use for an artilleryman. I'm beginning 
to think all of them Germans and Allies are alike and has 
an agreement against the doughboys." 

The Major interrupted by rapping sharply on the 
door. 

"Come in," was the polite and innocent invitation guile- 



178 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

lessly spoken from below. The Major had his helmet 
on, so he couldn't tear his hair. 

"Come up here, you idiots, every one of you." 

The Major directed his voice down into the hole in an 
unmistakable and official tone. There was a scurrying of 
feet and four men emerged carrying their guns. They 
were lined up against the trench wall. 

"At midnight," the Major began, "in your dugout in 
the front line forty yards from the Germans, with no 
sentry at the door, you hear a knock on the door and you 
shout, 'Come in.' I commend your politeness, and I 
know that's what your mothers taught you to say when 
visitors come, but this isn't any tea fight out here. One 
German could have wiggled over the top here and stood 
in this doorway and captured all four of you single- 
handed, or he could have rolled a couple of bombs down 
that hole and blown all of you to smithereens. What's 
your aim in life — hard labour in a German prison camp 
or a nice little wooden cross out here four thousand miles 
from Punkinville? Why wasn't there any sentry at that 
door?" 

The question remained unanswered but the incident 
had its effect on the quartet. Without orders, all four 
decided to spend the remainder of the night on the firing 
step with their eyes glued on the enemy's line. They 
simply hadn't realised they were really in the war. The 
Major knew this, but made a mental reservation of which 
the commander of this special platoon got full benefit 
before the night was over. 

The front line from here onward followed a small 
ridge running generally east and west, but now bearing 
slightly to the northward. We were told the German line 
ran in the same general direction, but at this point bore 
to the southward. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 179 

The opposing lines in the direction of our course were 
converging and we were approaching the place where 
they were the closest in the sector. If German listening 
posts heard the progress of our party through the line, 
only a telephone call back to the artillery was necessary 
to plant a shell among us, as every point on the system 
was registered. 

As we silently considered various eventualities im- 
material to the prosecution of the war but not without 
personal concern, our progress was brought to a sudden 
standstill. 

"Huh-huh-halt !" came a drawn-out command in a 
husky, throaty stammer, weaker than a whisper, from an 
undersized tin-hatted youngster planted in the centre of 
the trench not ten feet in front of us. His left foot was 
forward and his bayoneted rifle was held ready for a 
thrust. 

"Huh-huh-huh-halt !'* came the nervous, whispering 
command again, although we had been motionless since 
the first whisper. 

We heard a click as the safety catch on the man's 
rifle lock was thrown off and the weapon made ready to 
discharge. The Major was watching the nervous hand 
that rested none too steadily on the trigger stop. He 
stepped to one side, but the muzzle of the gun followed 
him. 

"Huh-huh-huh-halt! I tuh-tuh-tell you." 

This time the whisper vibrated with nervous tension 
and there was no mistaking the state of mind of the 
sentry. 

'Take it easy,*' replied the Major with attempted 
calm. *T'm waiting for you to challenge me. Don't 
get excited. This is the commanding officer." 



i8o "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"What's the countersign?" came from the voice in a 
hard strain. 

'Troy," the Major said, and the word seemed to bring 
worlds of reassurance to the rifleman, who sighed with 
reHef , but forgot to move his rifle until the Major said : 

"Will you please take that gun off me and put the 
safety back in ?" 

The nervous sentry moved the gun six inches to the 
right and we correspondents, standing in back of the 
Major, looked into something that seemed as big as the 
La Salle street tunnel. I jumped out of range behind the 
Major. Eyre plunged knee-deep into water out of range, 
and Woods with the rubber boots started to go over the 
top. 

The click of the replaced safety lock sounded unusu- 
ally like the snap of a trigger, but no report followed and 
three hearts resumed their beating. 

"There is no occasion to get excited," the Major said 
to the young soldier in a fatherly tone. "I'm glad to 
see you are wide-awake and on the job. Don't feel any 
fears for your job and just remember that with that gun 
and bayonet in your hands you are better than any man 
who turns that trench corner or crosses out there. YouVe 
got the advantage of him, and besides that you are a bet- 
ter man than he is." 

The sentry, now smiling, saluted the Major as the lat- 
ter conducted the party quietly around the trench corner 
and into a sap leading directly out into No Man's Land. 
Twice the trench passed under broad belts of barbed wire, 
which we were cautioned to avoid with our helmets, be- 
cause any sound was undesirable for obvious reasons. 

After several minutes of this cautious advance, we 
reached a small listening post that marked the closest 
point in the sector to the German line. Several silent 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 181 

sentries were crouching on the edge of the pit. Gunny 
sacks covered the hole and screened it in front and above. 
We remained silent while the Major in the lowest whis- 
per spoke with a corporal and learned that except for 
two or three occasions, when the watchers thought they 
heard sounds near our wire, the night had been calm. 

We departed as silently as we came. The German line 
from a distance of forty yards looked no different from 
its appearance at a greater distance, but since it was 
closer, it was carried with a constant tingle of anticipation. 

Into another communicating trench and through bet- 
ter walled fortifications of splintered forest, the Major 
led us to a place where the recent shelling had changed 
twenty feet of trench into a gaping gulley almost without 
sides and waist-deep in water. A working detail was en- 
deavouring to repair the damage. In parties of two, we 
left the trench and crossed an open space on the level. 
The forty steps we covered across that forbidden ground 
were like stolen fruit. Such rapture! Bazin, who was 
seeking a title for a book, pulled ''Eureka!" 

''Over the top armed with a pencil," he said. "Not bad, 
eh?" 

Back in Seicheprey, just before the Major left us for 
our long trip back to quarters, he led the way to the en- 
trance of a cemetery, well kept in the midst of surround- 
ing chaos. Graves of French dead ranged row upon row. 

"I just wanted to show you some of the fellows that 
held this line until we took it over," he said simply. 
"Our own boys that we've lost since we've been here, are 
buried down in the next village." 

We silently saluted the spot as we passed it thirty 
minutes later. 



i82 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

CHAPTER iX 

THE NIGHT OUR GUNS CUT LOOSE 

As soon as our forces had made themselves at home in 
the Toul sector, it was inevitable that belligerent activity 
would increase and this, in spite of the issuance of strict 
orders that there should be no development of the normal 
daily fire. Our men could not entirely resist the tempta- 
tion to start something. 

As was to be expected, the Germans soon began to 
suspect that they were faced by different troops from the 
ones who had been confronting them. The enemy set 
out to verify his suspicions. He made his first raid on 
the American line. 

It was in a dense mist on the morning of January 30th 
that the Germans lowered a terrific barrage on one of 
our advance hstening posts and then rushed the position 
with a raiding party outnumbering the defendants ten 
to one. 

Two Americans held that post — five more succeeded 
in making their way through the storm of falling shells 
and in coming to the assistance of the first two. That 
made seven Americans in the fight. When the fighting 
ceased, every one of the seven had been accounted for 
in the three items, dead, wounded or captured. 

That little handful of Americans, fought, died or were 
wounded in the positions which they had been ordered to 
hold. Although the engagement was an extremely minor 
one, it being the first of its kind on the American sector, 
it was sufficient to give the enemy some idea of the deter- 
mination and fighting qualities of the individual Ameri- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 183 

can soldier. Their comrades were proud of them, and 
were inclined to consider the exploit, "Alamo stuff." 

Two of the defenders were killed, four were wounded, 
and one was captured. The wounded men reported that 
the captured American continued to fight even after being 
severely wounded. He was the last to remain on his 
feet and when a bomb blew his rifle from his hand and 
injured his arm, he succumbed to superior numbers and 
was carried off by his captors. 

After the hurried sortie, the Germans beat a hasty 
retreat so that the position was reoccupied immediately 
by another American detail. 

The "Alamo" seven had not been taken by surprise. 
Through a downpour of rather badly placed shells, they 
held their position on the firing step and worked both 
their rifles and machine guns against the raiding party, 
which they could not see, but knew would be advancing 
behind the curtain of fire. Hundreds of empty cartridges 
and a broken American bayonet constituted impartial 
testimony to the herceness of the fighting. After the 
first rush, in which the defenders accounted for a num- 
ber of Germans, the fighting began at close quarters, the 
enemy peppering the listening post with hand grenades. 

In the meantime the German barrage had been lifted 
and lengthened until it was lowered again between the 
"Alamo" seven and their comrades in the rear. 

There were calls to surrender, but no ;^cceptances. The 
fighting became hand-to-hand with bayonet and gun butt. 
The defenders fought on in the hope that assistance soon 
would arrive from the American artillery. 

But the Germans had planned the raid well. Their first 
barrage cut all telephone wires leading back from our 
front lines and the signal rocket which one of the men in 
the listening post had fired into the air, had been smoth- 



i84 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

ered in the dense mist. That rocket had called for a 
defensive barrage from American artillery and when 
no answer came to it, a second one was fired, but that 
also was snuffed out by the fog. 

The net result of the raid was that the Germans had 
captured one of our wounded men and had thereby iden- 
tified the organisation opposing them as the First Regu- 
lar Division of the United States Army, composed of 
the i6th, i8th, 26th, and 28th Regular U. S. Infantry 
Regiments and the 5th, 6th and 7th Regular U. S. Army 
Field Artillery. The division was under the command 
of Major General Robert Lee Bullard. 

In the days and weeks that followed, the daily exchange 
of shells on the sector increased to two and three times 
the number it had been before our men arrived there. 
There were nightly patrols in No Man's Land and 
several instances where these patrols met in the dark and 
engaged one another with casualties on both sides. 

One night a little over a month later — the early morn- 
ing of March 4th, to be exact — it was my privilege to 
witness from an exceptional vantage point, the first 
planned and concentrated American artillery action 
against the enemy. The German lines selected for this 
sudden downpour of shell, comprised two small saHents 
jutting out from the enemy's positions in the vicinity of 
the ruined village of Lahayville, in the same sector. 

In company with an orderly who had been despatched 
as my guide, I started from an artillery battalion head- 
quarters shortly before midnight, and together we made 
our way up the dark muddy road that led through the 
dense Bois de la Reine to the battery positions. Half an 
hour's walk and O'Neil, the guide, led me off the road 
into a darker tunnel of overlaced boughs where we 
stumbled along on the ties of a narrow gauge railroad 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 185 

that conveyed heavy shells from the road to the guns. 
We passed through several gun pits and stopped in front 
of a huge abri built entirely above ground. 

Its walls and roof must have been between five and 
seven feet thick and were made from layers of logs, 
sandbags, railroad iron and slabs of concrete reinforced 
with steel. It looked impenetrable. 

"Battery commander's headquarters," O'Neil said to 
me as we entered a small hot room lighted by two oil 
lamps and a candle. Three officers, at two large map 
tables, were working on sheets of figures. Two wooden 
bunks, one above the other, and two posts supporting the 
low ceiling completed the meagre furnishings of the 
room. A young officer looked up from his work, O'Neil 
saluted, and addressed him. 

"The Major sent me up with this correspondent. He 
said you could let him go wherever he could see the fun 
and that you are not responsible for his safety." O'Neil 
caught the captain's smile at the closing remark and 
withdrew. The captain showed me the map. 

"Here we are," he said, indicating a spot with his 
finger, "and here's what we are aiming at to-night. There 
are two places you can stay to see the fun. You can stay 
in this shelter and hear the sound of it, or you can go up 
a little further front to this point, and mount the plat- 
form in our observation tree. In this abri you are safe 
from splinters and shrapnel but a direct hit would wipe 
us out. In the tree you are exposed to direct hits and 
splinters from nearby bursts but at least you can see 
the whole show. It's the highest point around here and 
overlooks the whole sector." 

I sensed that the captain expected a busy evening and 
looked forward with no joy to possible interference from 
a questioning visitor, so I chose the tree. 



i86 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"All right," he said, "you've got helmet and gas masks, 
I see. Now how's your watch ? Take the right time off 
mine. We have just synchronised ours with headquar- 
ters. Zero is one o'clock. You had better start now." 

He called for an orderly with a German name, and the 
two of us left. Before I was out of the room, the cap- 
tain had returned to his mathematics and was figuring 
out the latest range variations and making allowances 
for latest developments in wind, temperature and barom- 
eter. The orderly with the German name and I plunged 
again into the trees and brought up shortly on the edge 
of a group of men who were standing in the dark near 
a large tree trunk. I could hear several other men and 
some stamping horses off to one side. 

The party at the foot of the tree was composed of ob- 
servers, signal linemen and runners. All of them were 
enlisted men. I inquired who were to be my comrades in 
the tree top and three presented themselves. One said 
his name was Pat Guahn, the second gave his as Peter 
Griffin and the third acknowledged Mike Stanton. I 
introduced myself and Griffin said, "I see we are all 
from the same part of Italy." 

At twenty minutes to one, we started up the tree, 
mounting by rudely constructed ladders that led from 
one to the other of the four crudely fashioned platforms. 
We reached the top breathless and with no false impres- 
sions about the stability of our swaying perch. The tree 
seemed to be the tallest in the forest and nothing inter- 
fered with our forward view. The platform was a bit 
shaky and Guahn Dut my thoughts to words and music by 
softly singing — 

"Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top, 
When the shell comes the runners all flop, 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" 187 

When the shell busts, good-bye to our station, 
We're up in a tree, bound for damnation." 

The compass gives us north and we locate in the for- 
ward darkness an approximate sweep of the front lines. 
Guahn is looking for the flash of a certain German gun 
and it will be his duty to keep his eyes trained through 
the fork of a certain marked twig within arm's reach. 

*lf she speaks, we want to know it," Guahn says; "I 
can see her from here when she flashes and there's an- 
other man who can see her from another place. You see 
we get an intersection of angles on her and then we know 
where she is just as though she had sent her address. 
Two minutes later we drop a card on her and keep lier 
warm." 

"Is that that gun from Russia we heard about?" Grif- 
fin asks. 

"No," answers Guahn, "we are not looking for her 
from that station. Besides, she isn't Russian. She was 
made by the British, used by the Russians, captured by 
the Germans and in turn is used by them against Ameri- 
cans. We have found pieces of her shell and they all 
have an English trade mark on them. She fires big 
eight inch stuff." 

Griflin is watching in another direction for another 
flash and Stanton is on the lookout for signal flares and 
the flash of a signal light projector which might be used 
in case the telephone communication is disturbed by 
enemy fire. It is then that the runners at the base of 
the tree must carry the message back by horse. 

Only an occasional thump is heard forward in the 
darkness. Now and then machine guns chatter insanely 
as they tuck a seam in the night. At infrequent inter- 



i88 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

vals, a star shell curves upward, bursts, suspends its 
silent whiteness in mid-air, and dies. 

In our tree top all seems quiet and so is the night. 
There is no moon and only a few stars are out. A pene- 
trating dampness takes the place of cold and there is that 
in the air that threatens a change of weather. 

The illuminated dial of my watch tells me that it is 
three minutes of one and I communicate the information 
to the rest of the Irish quartet. In three minutes, the 
little world that we look upon from our tree top is due 
to change with terrific suddenness and untold possibil- 
ities. 

Somewhere below in the darkness and to one side, I 
hear the clank of a ponderous breech lock as the mech- 
anism is closed on a shell in one of the heavy guns. 
Otherwise all remains silent. 

Two minutes of one. Each minute seems to drag like 
an hour. It is impossible to keep one's mind off that 
unsuspecting group of humans out there in that little 
section of German trench upon which the heavens are 
about to fall. Griffin leans over the railing and calls to 
the runners to stand by the horses' heads until they be- 
come accustomed to the coming roar. 

One minute of one. We grip the railing and wait. 

Two flashes and two reports, the barest distinguishable 
interval, and the black horizon belches red. From ex- 
treme left to extreme right the flattened proscenium in 
front of us glows with the ghastliness of the Broockon. 

Waves of light flush the dark vault above like the night 
sky over South Chicago's blast furnaces. The heavens 
reflect the glare. The flashes range in colour from blind- 
ing yellow to the softest tints of pink. They seem to 
form themselves from strange combinations of greens 
and mauves and lavenders. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 189 

The sharp shattering crash of the guns reaches our 
ears almost on the instant. The forest shakes and our 
tree top sways with the slam of the heavies close by. The 
riven air whimpers with the husky whispering of the 
rushing load of metal bolts passing above us. 

Looking up into that void, we deny the uselessness of 
the act and seek in vain to follow the trains of those un- 
seen things that make the air electric with their presence. 
We hear them coming, passing, going, but see not one 
of them. 

"There's whole blacksmith's shops sailing over our 
heads on the way to Germany," Pat Guahn shouts in my 
ear. 'T guess the Dutchman sure knows how to call for 
help. He doesn't care for that first wallop, and he 
thinks he would like about a half million reserves from 
the Russian front." 

'That darkness out in No Man's Land don't make any 
hit with him either," Stanton contributes. "He's got it 
lit up so bright I'm homesick for Broadway." 

Now comes the thunder of the shell arrivals. You 
know the old covered wooden bridges that are still to 
be found in the country. Have you ever heard a team 
of horses and a farm wagon thumping and rumbling over 
such a bridge on the trot? 

Multiply the horse team a thousand times. Lash the 
animals from the trot to the wild gallop. Imagine the 
sound of their stampede through the echoing wooden 
structure and you approach in volume and effect the 
rumble and roar of the steel as it rained down on that 
little German salient that night. 

"Listen to them babies bustin'," says Griffin. "I'm 
betting them groundhogs is sure huntin' their holes right 
now and trying to dig clear through to China." 

That was the sound and sight of that opening salvo 



190 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

from all guns, from the small trench mortars in the line, 
the lightest field pieces behind them, the heavy field pieces 
about us and the ponderous railroad artillery located 
behind us. 

Its crash has slashed the inkiness in front of us with 
a lurid red meridian. I don't know how many hands had 
pulled lanyards on exactly the same instant but the con- 
sequent spread of fire looked like one continuous flame. 

Now the "seventy-fives" are speaking, not in unison, 
but at various speeds, limited only by the utmost celerity 
of the sweating gun crews. 

But the German front line is not the only locality re- 
ceiving unsolicited attention. Enemy gun positions far 
behind the lines are being plastered with high explosives 
and anesthetised with gas shells. 

So effective is the American artillery neutralisation of 
the German batteries, that it is between fifteen and twenty 
minutes before the first enemy gun replies to the terrific 
barrage. And though expected momentarily, a German 
counter barrage fails to materialise. 

In our tree top we wait for the enemy's counter shell- 
ing but the retaliation does not develop. When occupy- 
ing an exposed position, the suspense of waiting for an 
impending blow increases in tenseness as the delay con- 
tinues and the expectations remain unrealised. With no 
incHnation to be unreasonable, one even prays for the 
speedy delivery of the blow in the same way that the 
man with the aching tooth urges the dentist to speed up 
and have it over with. 

*'Why in hell don't they come back at us?" Grifiin 
asks. ''I've had myself all tuned up for the last twenty 
minutes to have a leg blown off and be thankful. I hate 
this waiting stuff." 

**Keep your shirt on, Pete," Stanton remarks. "Give 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 



191 



'em a chance to get their breath and come out of their 
holes. That barrage drove 'em down a couple hundred 
feet into the ground and they haven't any elevators to 
come up on. We'll hear from 'em soon enough." 

We did, but it was not more than a whisper as com- 
pared with what they were receiving from our side of the 
line. The German artillery came into lethargic action 
after the American barrage had been in constant opera- 
tion for thirty minutes and then the enemy's fire was only 
desultory. Only an occasional shell from Kulturland 
came our way, and even they carried a rather tired, list- 
less buzz, as though they didn't know exactly where they 
were going and didn't care. 

Six or eight of them hummed along a harmless orbit 
not far above our tree top and fell in the forest. It cer- 
tainly looked as though we were shooting all the hard- 
stuff and the German end of the fireworks party was all 
coloured lights and Roman candles. Of the six shells 
that passed us, three failed to explode upon landing. 

"That makes three dubs," said Guahn. 

"You don't mean dubs," Stanton corrected him, "you 
mean duds and even then you are wrong. Those were 
gas pills. They just crack open quietly so you don't know 
it until you've sniffed yourself dead. Listen, you'll hear 
the gas alert soon." 

Even as he spoke, we heard through the firing the 
throaty gurgling of the sirens. The alarm started on 
our right and spread from station to station through the 
woods. We adjusted the respirators and turned our 
muffled faces toward the firing line. Through the mois- 
ture fogged glasses of my mask, I looked first upon my 
companions on this rustic scaffold above the forest. 

War's demands had removed our appearances far from 
the human. Our heads were topped with uncomfortable 



192 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

steel casques, harder than the backs of turtles. Our eyes 
were large, flat, round glazed surfaces unblinking and 
owl-like. Our faces were shapeless folds of black rub- 
ber cloth. Our lungs sucked air through tubes from a 
canvass bag under our chins and we were inhabiting a 
tree top like a family of apes. It really required imagina- 
tion to make it seem real. 

*'Looks like the party is over," came the muflled re- 
mark from the masked figure beside me. The cannonad- 
ing was dying down appreciably. The blinking line of 
lights in front of us grew less. 

A terrific upward blast of red and green flame from 
the ground close to our tree, reminded us that one heavy 
still remained under firing orders. The flash seen through 
the forest revealed in intricate tracings the intertwining 
limbs and branches of the trees. It presented the appear- 
ance of a piece of strong black lace spread out and held 
at arm's length in front of a glowing grate. 

From the German lines an increased number of flares 
shot skyward and as the cannon cracks ceased, save for 
isolated booms, the enemy machine guns could be heard 
at work, riveting the night with sprays of lead and sound- 
ing for all the world like a scourge of hungry wood- 
peckers. 

"God help any of the doughboys that are going up 
against any of that stuff," Griffin observed through his 
mask. 

"Don't worry about our doughboys," replied Stan- 
ton; "they are all safe in their trenches now. That's 
most likely the reason why our guns were ordered to lay 
off. I guess Fritzie got busy with his typewriters too 
late." 

I descended the tree, leaving my companions to wait 
for the orders necessary for their departure. Unfamiliaf 



I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 193 

with the unmarked paths of the forest and guided only 
as to general directions, I made my way through the 
trees some distance in search of the road back from the 
front. 

A number of mud and water-filled shell holes inter- 
vened to make the exertion greater and consequently the 
demand upon lungs for air greater. After floundering 
several kilometres through a strange forest with a gas 
mask on, one begins to appreciate the temptation that 
comes to tear off the stifling nose bag and risk asphyxia- 
tion for just one breath of fresh air. 

A babel of voices in the darkness to one side guided 
me to a log cabin where I learned from a sentry that 
the gas scare had just been called off. Continuing on 
the road, I collided head on in the darkness with a walk- 
ing horse. Its rider swore and so did I, with slightly 
the advantage over him as his head was still encased. I 
told him the gas alarm was off and he tore away the 
mask with a sigh of relief. I left him while he was re- 
moving the horse's gas mask. 

A light snow was beginning to fall as I said good- 
night to the battalion commander in front of his roadside 
shack. A party of mounted runners was passing on the 
way to their quarters. With an admirable lack of dignity 
quite becoming a national guard cavalry major in com- 
mand of regular army artillery, he said : 

"Good-night, men, we licked hell out of them." 

The Toul sector, during its occupation by Americans, 
always maintained a high daily rating of artillery activ- 
ity. The opposing forces were continually planning sur- 
prises on one another. At any minute of the night or 
day a terrific bombardment of high explosive or gas 
might break out on either side. Both sides operated their 



194 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

sound ranging apparatus to a rather high degree of 
efficiency. 

By these deHcate instruments we could locate the ex- 
act position of an unseen enemy battery. Following that 
location, the battery would immediately be visited with 
a concentrated downpour of hot steel intended to wipe it 
out of existence. The enemy did as much for us, so 
that in the artillery, when the men were not actually 
manning the guns in action, they were digging gun pits 
for reserve positions which they could occupy if the 
enemy happened to get the proper range of the old 
positions. In this casual counter-battery work our artil- 
lery adopted a system by which many lives were saved. 

If a German battery began shelling one of our battery 
positions, the artillerymen in that position were not called 
upon to stand by their guns and return the fire. The 
order would be given to temporarily abandon the position 
and the men would be withdrawn a safe distance. The 
German battery that was firing would be responded to, 
two to one, by other American batteries located nearby 
and which did not happen to be under fire at the time. 
By this system we conserved our strength. 

Our infantry was strong in their praise of the artil- 
lery. I observed this particularly one day on the Toul 
front when General Pershing dropped in unexpectedly 
at the division headquarters, then located in the hillside 
village of Bourcq. While the commander and his party 
were awaiting a meal which was being prepared, four 
muddy figures tramped down the hallway of the Chateau. 
Through the doorway the general observed their entrance. 

The two leading figures were stolid German soldiers, 
prisoners of war, and behind them marched their captors, 
two excusably proud young Americans. One of them 
carried his bayoneted rifle at the ready, while the second 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 195 

carried the equipment which had been taken from the 
prisoners. The American commander ordered the group 
brought before him and asked one of the Americans to 
relate the story of the capture. 

"We in the infantry got 'em, sir," repHed one, "but 
the artillery deserved most of the credit. It happened 
just at dawn this morning. Jim here, and myself, were 
holding down an advance machine gun post when the 
Germans laid down a flock of shells on our first line 
trench. We just kept at the gun ready to let them have 
it if they started to come over. 

i|, "Pretty soon we saw them coming through the mist and 
we began to put it to 'em. I think we got a bunch of 
them but they kept on coming. 

*Then somebody back in our first line shot up the 
signal for a barrage in our sector. It couldn't have been 
a minute before our cannon cut loose and the shells began 
to drop right down in the middle of the raiding party. 

'Tt was a good heavy barrage, sir, and it cut clean 
through the centre of the raiders. Two Germans were 
i ahead of the rest and the barrage landed right in back of 
them. The rest started running back toward their lines, 
but the first pair could not go back because they would 
have had to pass through the barrage. I kept the machine 
gun going all the time and Jim showed himself above the 
trench and pointed his rifle at the cut-off pair. 

"They put up their hands right quick and we waved to 
'em to come in. They took it on the jump and landed 
in our trench as fast as they could. We took their equip- 
ment off them and we were ordered to march them back 
here to headquarters. That's all there was to it, sir." 

The enemy in front of Toul manifested an inordinate 
anxiety to know more about the strength of our forces 
and the character of the positions we occupied. A cap- 



196 '^AND THEY THOUGHT 

tured German document issued to the Fifth Bavarian 
Landwehr infantry brigade instructed every observer and 
patrol to do his or its best "to bring information about 
the new enemy." 

''Nothing is known as yet about the methods of fight- 
ing or leadership," the document set forth, "and all in- 
formation possible must be gathered as to particular fea- 
tures of American fighting and outpost tactics. This 
will then be used for extending the information bulletin. 
Any observation or identification, however insignificant, 
may be of the greatest value." 

The document directed that data on the following ques- 
tions be obtained : 

''Are sentry posts sentry posts or stronger posts? 
Further advanced reconnoitring patrols? Manner of 
challenging? Behaviour on post during day and night? 
Vigilance? Ambush tactics and cunning? 

"Do they shoot and signal on every occasion? Do 
the posts hold their ground on the approach of a patrol, 
or do they fall back ? 

"Are the Americans careful and cautious? Are they 
noisy? What is their behaviour during smoke screens?" 

The enemy's keen desire to acquire this information 
was displayed in the desperate efforts it made. One day 
the French troops occupying the trenches on the right 
flank of the American sector, encountered a soldier in i^ 
an American uniform walking through their positions. 

He was stopped and questioned. He said he had beeni 
one of an American patrol that had gone out the night (| 
before, that he had lost his way in No Man's Landi 
and that he thought he was returning to his own trenches, || 
when he dropped into those held by the French. 

Although the man wore our uniform and spoke excel- 
lent English and seemed straightforward in his replies, 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 197 

as to his name and rank and organisation, the French 
officer before whom he was brought was not completely 
satisfied. To overcome this hesitancy, the suspected 
man opened his shirt and produced an American iden- 
tification tag verifying his answers. 

The French officer, still suspicious, ordered the man 
held while he telephoned to the American organisation 
mentioned to ascertain whether any man of the name 
given was missing from that unit. 

"Yes," replied the American captain. "We lost him 
last October, when we were in the front line down in the 
Luneville sector. He was captured with eight others 
by the Germans." 

"Well, weVe got him over here on your right flank. 
He came into our lines this morning — " the French offi- 
cer started to say. 

"BuIIy,^ came the American interruption over the 
wire. "He's escaped from the Germans and has come 
clear through their lines to get back to his company. He'll 
get a D. S. C. for that. We'll send right over for him." 

"But when we questioned him," replied the French- 
man, "he said he left your lines only last night on patrol 
and got lost in No Man's Land." 

"I'll come right over and look at that party, myself," 
the American captain hastily replied. 

He reached the French officer's dugout several hours 
later and the suspect was ordered brought in. 

"He must be crazy, sir," the French orderly said. 
"He tried to kill himself a few minutes ago and we have 
had to hold him." 

The man was brought into the dugout between two 
poilus who held his arms. The American captain took 
a careful look and said : 

"That's not our man. He wears our uniform correctly 



igS "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and that*s our regulation identification tag. Both of 
them must have been taken away from our man when 
he was captured. This man is an impostor." 

"He*s more than that," repHed the Frenchman with a 
smile. "He's a German spy." 

The prisoner made no reply, but later made a full 
confession of his act, and also gave to his interrogators 
much valuable information, which, however, did not 
save him from paying the penalty in front of a firing 
squad. When he faced the rifles, he was not wearing 
the stolen uniform. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 199 

CHAPTER X 

INTO PICARDY TO MEET THE GERMAN PUSH 

Toward the end of March, 1918, just at the time when 
the American Expeditionary Forces were approaching the 
desired degree of military effectiveness, the fate of civ- 
ilisation was suddenly imperilled by the materialisation 
of the long expected German offensive. 

This push, the greatest the enemy had ever attempted, 
began on March 21st, and the place that Hindenburg 
selected for the drive was Picardy, the valley of the 
Somme, the ancient cockpit of Europe. On that day the 
German hordes, scores upon scores of divisions, hurled 
themselves against the British line between Arras and 
Noyon. 

Before that tremendous weight of manpower, the 
Allied line was forced to give and one of the holding 
British armies, the Fifth, gave ground on the right flank, 
and with its left as a hinge, swung back like a gate, open- 
ing the way for the Germans toward Paris. 

There have been many descriptions of the fierce fight- 
ing put up by the French and British to stem the German 
advance, but the most interesting one that ever came to 
my notice, came from one of the few American soldiers 
that participated in the defence. Two weeks after the 
opening of the battle and at a time when the German ad- 
vance had been stopped, I came upon this American in 
a United States Military Hospital at Dijon. 

An interne led me to the bedside of Jimmy Brady, a 
former jockey from the Pimlico turf in Baltimore, and 
now a proud wearer of Uncle Sam's khaki. In his own 



200 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

quaint way, Jimmy told me the story of what a little 
handful of Americans did in the great battle in Picardy. 
Jimmy knew. Jimmy had been there. 

"Lad," he said, "I'm telling you it was a real jam. 
I learned one hell of a headful in the last ten days that 
I'll not be forgetting in the next ten years. I've got 
new ideas about how long this war is goin' to last. Of 
course, we're going to lick the Boches before it ends, 
but I've sorter given up the picture I had of myself march- 
ing up Fifth Avenue in a victory parade on this coming 
Fourth of July. I'll say it can't be done in that time. 

"Our outfit from old engineers, and believe me 

there's none better, have been working up in the Somme 
country for the last two months. We were billeted at 
Brie and most of our work had been throwing bridges 
across the Canal du Nord about three miles south of 
Peronne. I'm telling you the Somme ain't a river. It's 
a swamp, and they just hardly squeeze enough water 
outer it to make a canal which takes the place of a river. 

"We was working under the British. Their old bridges 
over the canal were wooden affairs and most of them 
had signs on them reading, 'This bridge won't hold a 
tank,' and that bridge wouldn't bear trotting horses, and 
so on. Some of 'em we tore down must have been put 
in for scenery purposes only. We were slamming up 
some husky looking steel structures like you see in the 
States, and believe me it makes me sick to think that we 
had to blow 'em all up again before the Boches got to 'em. 

"I see by the papers that the battle began on the 21st, 
but I've got no more idea about the date of it than the 
King of Honolulu. They say it's been on only about ten 
days, but I couldn't swear it hadn't been on since New 
Year's Eve. It sure seemed a long time. As I told you, 
we were working just south of Peronne on the main road 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 201 

between St. Quentin and Amiens. She started on a foggy 
morning and for two days the music kept getting closer. 
On the first day, all traffic was frontward, men, guns, and 
camions going up towards the lines, and then the tide 
began to flow back. 

'^Ambulances and camions, full of poor wounded dev- 
ils, filled the road, and then came labour battalions of 
chattering Chinks, Egyptians, and Fiji Islanders and 
God knows what. None of these birds were lingering, 
because the enemy was sprinkling the roads with shells 
and sorter keeping their marching spirits up. Orders 
came for us to ditch our packs and equipment all except 
spades, rifles, belts and canteens, and we set off toward 
the rear. 

"Do you mind your map of the Somme? Well, we 
pulls up at Chaulnes for a breath. It was a big depot 
and dump town — aeroplanes and everything piled up in 
it. We were ordered onto demolition work, being as we 
was still classed as non-combatants. I don't know how 
many billions of dollars' worth of stuff we blew up and 
destroyed, but it seemed to me there was no end of it. 
Fritz kept coming all the time and they hiked us on to 
Aubercourt and then to Dormant, and each place we 
stopped and dug trenches, and then they shoots us into 
camions and rushes us north to a town not far out of 
Amiens. 

"With about forty men, we marched down the road, 
this time as non-combatants no longer. We stopped just 
east of the village of Marcelcave and dug a line of 
trenches across the road. We had twenty machine guns 
and almost as many different kinds of ammunition as 
there was different nationalities in our trench. Our po- 
sition was the fifth line of defence, we was told, but the 



202 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

guns kept getting closer and a lot of that long range stuff 
was giving us hell. Near me there was a squad of my men, 
one Chink, three Canadians, and we two Dublin f usileers. 

"Then we' begin to see our own guns, that is, British 
guns, beginning to blow hell out of this here village of 
Marcelcave right in front of us. It made me wild to see 
the artillery making a mistake like that, so I says to one of 
these here Dublin f usileers: 

" 'Whatinell's 'matter wid dose guns firing on our own 
men up there in the village? If this is the fifth Hne, then 
that must be our fourth line in the village ?' 

** 'Lad,' says the Dublin fusileer to me, *I don't want 
to discourage you for the life of me, but this only used 
to be the fifth line. We are in the first line now and it's up 
to you and me and the Chink and the rest of us to keep the 
Fritzes out of Amiens. At this moment we are all that's 
between.' 

"We started to the machine guns and began pouring 
it in on 'em. The minute some of 'em would start out of 
the town we would wither them. Holy mother, but what 
a beautiful murder it was! 

"I didn't know then, and don't know yet, what has 
become of all the rest of our officers and men, but I sorter 
felt like every shot I sent over was paying 'em back 
for some of their dirty work. We kept handing it to 
'em hot. You oughter seen that Chink talking Mon- 
golian to a machine gun, and, believe me, he sure made 
it understand him. I'm here to say that when a Chink 
fights, he's a fighting son-of-a-gun and don't let any- 
body kid you different. 

"Well, our little mob held 'em off till dark and then 
British Tommies piled in and relieved us. We needed 
it because we hadn't had a bite in seventy hours and I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 203 

had been lying in the mud and water for twice that time. 
Just before relief comes on, two skulking figures comes 
over the top. I was thinking that maybe these was 
Hindus or Eskimos coming to join our little interna- 
tional party and we shouts out to 'em and asks *em where 
they hails from. Both of 'em yelled back, 'Kamerad/ 
and then I knew that we'd not only held the fort, but 
had captured two prisoners even if they was deserters. 

"I marched 'em back that night to the next town and 
took 'em into a grocery store, where there was a lot of 
Tommies helping themselves to the first meal in days. 
While we were eating bread and cheese and sardines 
and also feeding me two prisoners, we talks to them 
and finds out that, as far as they are concerned, the 
Kaiser will never get their vote again. 

''One Tommy says to one of my prisoners : 'Kaiser no 
good — pas bon, ain't it?' and the prisoner said, 'Yah,' 
and I shoved my elbow into his ribs and right quick he 
said, 'Nein.' Then the Tommy said : 'Hindenburg 
dirty rotter, nacy pa?' and the Fritz said, 'Yah. Nein,' 
and then looked at me and said 'Yah' again. They was 
not bad prisoners and I marched 'em twenty miles that 
night, just the three of us — two of them in front and 
me in back with the rifle over me arm. 

"And the joke of it was that both of them could 
have taken the gun and killed me any minute for all I 
could have done." 

"How do you figure that, Corporal?" I asked. 

For reply, Jimmy Brady drew from beneath the 
blankets a pair of knotted hands with fingers and thumbs 
stiffened and bent in and obviously impossible to use on 
a trigger. Brady is not in the hospital for wounds. 
Four days and nights in water and mud in the battle of 



204 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

battles had twisted and shrunken him with rheumatism. 
But he is one rheumatic who helped to save Amiens. 

Upon the heels of the German successes in Picardy, 
developments followed fast. Principal among these, 
was the materialisation of a unified command of all 
the armies of the Allies. General Ferdinand Foch 
was selected and placed in supreme command of every 
fighting man under the Allied flags. 

One of the events that led up to this long delayed 
action, was the unprecedented action of General Pershing, 
when he turned over the command of all the American 
forces in France to General Foch. He did this with 
the words : 

'*I come to say to you that the American people would 
hold it a great honour for our troops were they engaged 
in the present battle. I ask it of you in my name and 
in that of the American people. 

"There is at this moment no other question than that 
of fighting. Infantry, artillery, aviation — all that we 
have are yours to dispose of as you will. Others are 
coming which are as numerous as will be necessary. 
I have come to say to you that the American people 
would be proud to be engaged in the greatest battle in 
history." 

The action met with the unqualified endorsement of 
every officer and man in the American forces. From 
that minute on, the American slogan in France was 
"Let's go," and every regiment began to hope that it 
would be among the American organisations selected 
to do battle with the German in Picardy. Secretary of 
War Baker, then in France, expressed his pleasure over 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 205 

General Pershing's unselfish offer with the following 
public statement on Mar. 30th : 

**I am delighted with the prompt and effective action 
of General Pershing in placing all American troops at 
the disposal of the Allies in the present situation. His 
action will meet with hearty approval in the United 
States, where the people desire their Expeditionary 
Force to be of the utmost service to the commori cause. 

"I have visited practically all the American troops in 
France, some of them quite recently, and had an oppor- 
tunity to observe the enthusiasm with which the officers 
and men receive the announcement that they may be 
used in the present conflict. Regiments to which the 
announcement was made, broke spontaneously into 
cheers." 

Particularly were there cheers when the news spread 
through the ranks of the First United States division, 
then on duty on the line in front of Toul, that it had 
been the first American division chosen to go into 
Picardy. I was fortunate enough to make arrangements 
to go with them. 

I rode out from old positions with the guns and 
boarded the troop train which took our battery by de- 
vious routes to changes of scenery, gratifying both to 
vision and spirit. We lived in our cars on tinned meat 
and hard bread, washed down with swallows of vin 
ordinaire, hurriedly purchased at station buvettes. The 
horses rode well. 

Officers and men, none of us cared for train schedule 
simply because none of us knew where we were going, 
and little time was wasted in conjecture. Soldierly 
curiosity was satisfied with the knowledge that we were 



2o6 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

c-i our way, and with this satisfaction, the hours passed 
easily. In fact, the blackjack game in the officers' com- 
partment had reached the point where the battery com- 
mander had garnered almost all of the French paper 
money in sight, when our train passed slowly through 
the environs of Paris. 

Other American troop trains had preceded us, because 
where the railroad embankment ran close and parallel 
to the street of some nameless Faubourg, our appearance 
was met with cheers and cries from a welcoming regi- 
ment of Paris street gamins, who trotted in the street 
beside the slow moving troop train and shouted and 
threw their hats and wooden shoes in the air. Sous 
and fifty centime pieces and franc pieces showered from 
the side doors of the horses' cars as American soldiers, 
with typical disregard for the value of money, pitched 
coin after coin to the scrambling mob of children. At 
least a hundred francs must have been cast out upon 
those happy, romping waves of childish faces and up- 
stretched dirty hands. 

"A soldier would give his shirt away," said a platoon 
commander, leaning out of the window and watching the 
spectacle, and surreptitiously pitching a few coins him- 
self. **Hope we get out of this place before the men 
pitch out a gun or a horse to that bunch. Happy little 
devils, aren't they? It's great to think we are on our 
way up to meet their daddies." 

Unnumbered hours more passed merrily in the troop 
train before we were shunted into the siding of a 
little town. Work of unloading was started and com- 
pleted within an hour. Guns and wagons were unloaded 
on the quay, while the animals were removed from the 
cars on movable runways or ramps. As each gun or 
wagon reached the ground, its drivers hitched in the 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 207 

horses and moved it away. Five minutes later we rode 
out of the yards and down the main street of the town. 

Broad steel tires on the carriages of the heavies 
bumped and rumbled over the clean cobbles and the 
horses pranced spryly to get the kinks out of their legs, 
long fatigued from vibrations of the train. Women, old 
and young, lined the curbs, smiling and throwing kisses, 
waving handkerchiefs and aprons and begging for sou- 
venirs. If every request for a button had been com- 
plied with, our battery would have reached the front 
with a shocking shortage of safety pins. 

Darkness came on and with it a fine rain, as we cleared 
the town and halted on a level plain between soft fields 
of tender new wheat, which the horses sensed and snorted 
to get at. In twenty minutes. Mess Sergeant Kelly, 
from his high altar on the rolling kitchen, announced 
that the last of hot coffee had been dispensed. Some- 
where up ahead in the darkness, battery bugle notes con- 
veyed orders to prepare to mount. With the rattle of 
equipment and the application of endearing epithets, 
which horses unfortunately don't understand, we moved 
off at the sound of "forward." 

Off on our left, a noiseless passenger train slid silently 
across the rim of the valley, blue dimmed lights in its 
coach windows glowing like a row of wet sulphur 
matches. Far off in the north, flutters of white light 
flushed the night sky and an occasional grumbling of 
the distant guns gave us our first impression of the 
battle of battles. Every man in our battery tingled with 
the thrill. This was riding frontward with the guns — 
this was rolling and rumbling on through the night up 
toward the glare and glamour of war. I was riding 
beside the captain at the head of the column. He broke 
silence. 



2o8 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"It seems like a far cry from Honolulu with the 
moon playing through the palm trees on the beach/' he 
said quizzically, "to this place and these scenes and 
events to-night, but a little thing like a flip of coin de- 
cided it for me, and Fm blessing that coin to-night. 

"A year ago January, before we came into the war, 
I was stationed at San Antonio. Another officer friend 
of mine was stationed there and one day he received 
orders to report for duty at Honolulu. He had a girl 
in San Antonio and didn't want to leave her and he 
knew I didn't have a girl and didn't give a damn where 
I went, or was sent, so long as it was with the army. 
He put up the proposition of mutual exchange being 
permitted under regulations. 

"He wanted to take my place in San Antonio and 
give me his assignment in Honolulu, which I must say 
looked mighty good in those days to anybody who was 
tired of Texas. I didn't think then we'd ever come to 
war and besides it didn't make much difference to me 
one way or the other where I went. But instead of ac- 
cepting the proposition right off the reel, I told Jim 
we'd flip a coin to decide. 

"If it came tails, he would go to Honolulu. If it 
came heads, I would go to Honolulu. He flipped. Tails 
won. I'm in France and poor Jim is out there in 
Honolulu tending the Ukelele crop with prospects of 
having to stay there for some time. Poor devil, I got 
a letter from him last week. 

"Do you know, man knows no keener joy in the world 
than that which I have to-night. Here I am in France i 
at the head of two hundred and fifty men and horses 
and the guns and we're rolling up front to kick a dent in 
history. The poor unfortunate that ain't in this fight has 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT " 209 

almost got license to shoot himself. Life knows no 
keener joy than this." 

It was a long speech for our captain, but his words 
expressed not only the feeling of our battery, but our 
whole regiment, from the humblest wagon driver up to 
the colonel who, by the way, has just made himself most 
unpopular with the regiment by being promoted to a 
Brigadier Generalship. The colonel is passing upward 
to a higher command and the regiment is sore on losing 
him. One of his humblest critics has characterised the 
event as the "first rough trick the old man ever pulled." 

Midnight passed and we were still wheeling our way 
through sleeping villages, consulting maps under rays of 
flashlights, gathering directions some of the time from 
mile posts and wall signs, and at other times gaining 
knowledge of roads and turns and hills from sleepy 
heads in curl wrappers that protruded from bedroom 
chambers and were over-generous in advice. 

The animals were tired. Rain soaked the cigarettes 
and made them draw badly. Above was drizzle and 
below was mud. There were a few grumbles, but no 
man in our column would have traded places with a 
brother back home even if ofifered a farm to boot. 

It was after three in the morning when we parked 
the guns in front of a chateau, brought forward some 
lagging combat wagons and discovered the rolling 
kitchen had gone astray. In another hour the animals 
had been unhitched but not unharnessed, fed and 
watered in darkness and the men, in utter weariness, 
prepared to lie down and sleep anywhere. At this junc- 
ture, word was passed through the sections that the 
battery would get ready to move immediately. Orders 
were to clear the village by six o'clock. Neither men 



210 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

nor horses were rested, but we moved out on time and 
breakfasted on the road. 

The way seemed long, the roads bad and the guns 
heavy. But we were passing through an Eden of beauty 
— green fields and rolling hills crested by ancient 
chateaux. At times, the road wound down through 
hillside orchards, white and pink with apple blooms. 
Fatigue was heavy on man and beast, but I heard one 
walking cannoneer singing, "When It's Apple Blossom- 
time in Normandie." Another rider in the column re- 
called the time when his father used to give him ten 
cents for standing on the bottom of an upturned tin basin 
and reciting, ''Over the mountains winding down, horse 
and foot into Frederickstown." 

"The jar of these guns as they grind over the gravel 
is enough to grind the heart out of you," said a sweat- 
ing cannoneer who was pressing a helping shoulder to 
one of the heavies as we negotiated a steep hill. 

"What in hell you kicking about," said the man oppo- 
site. "Suppose you was travelling with one of them 
guns the Germans are using on Paris — I mean that old 
John J. Longdistance. You'd know what heavy guns are 
then. They say that the gun's so big and takes so many 
horses to haul it, that the man who drives the lead pair 
has never spent the night in the same town with the 
fellow who rides wheel swing." 

A young reserve lieutenant with mind intensely on 
his work, combined for my benefit his impressions of 
scenery with a lesson in artillery location. His char- 
acterisation of the landscape was as technical as it was 
Vmpoetical. 

"A great howitzer country," was the tenor of his 
remarks. "Look at the bottom of that slide. Fine posi- 
tion for one fifty-five. Take that gully over there. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 211 

That's a beaut of a place. No use talking. Great how- 
itzer country." 

During the afternoon, a veterinarian turned over two 
horses to a French peasant. One was exhausted and 
unable to proceed, and the other suffered a bad hoof, 
which would require weeks for healing. News that both 
animals were not going to be shot was received with 
joy by two men who had ridden them. I saw them 
patting the disabled mounts affectionately on the neck 
and heard one of them say, 

*' 'Salright, old timer — 'salright. Frenchy here is go- 
ing to take care of you all right. Uncle Sam's paying 
the bill and I am coming back and get you soon's we 
give Fritzie his bumps." 

An hour later, a young cannoneer gave in to fatigue 
and ignored orders to the extent of reclining on gun 
trail and falling asleep. A rut in the road made a stiff 
jolt, he rolled off and one ponderous wheel of the gun 
carriage passed over him. One leg, one arm and two 
ribs were broken and his feet crushed, was the doctor's 
verdict as the victim was carried away in an ambulance. 

"He'll get better all right," said the medico, "but he's 
finished his bit in the army." 

The column halted for lunch outside of a small town 
and I climbed on foot to the hilltop castle where 
mediaeval and modern were mixed in mute melange. A 
drawbridge crossed a long dry moat to cracked walls of 
rock covered with ivy. For all its well preserved signs 
of artistic ruin, it was occupied and well fitted within. 
From the topmost parapet of one rickety looking tower, 
a wire stretched out through the air to an old, ruined 
mill which was surmounted by a modern wind motor, 
the tail of which incongruously advertised the words 



212 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"Ideal power," with the typical conspicuity of American 
salesmanship. 

Near the base of the old mill was another jumble of 
moss-covered rocks, now used as a summer house, but 
open on all sides. At a table in the centre of this open 
structure, sat a blond haired young American soldier 
with black receivers clamped to either ear. I approached u 
and watched him jotting down words on a paper pad j 
before him. After several minutes of intent silence, he 
removed the harness from his head and told me that 
he belonged to the wireless outfit with tlie artillery and 
this station had been in operation since the day before. 

"Seems so peaceful here with the sun streaming down i 
over these old walls," he said. 

"What do you hear out of the air?" I asked. 

"Oh, we pick up a lot of junk," he replied, "Fm wait- 
ing for the German communique now. Here's some 
Spanish stuff I just picked up and some more junk in 
French. The English stations haven't started this after- 
noon. A few minutes ago I heard a German aeroplane 
signalling by wireless to a German battery and directing 
its fire. I could tell every time the gun was ordered to 
fire and every time the aviator said the shot was short or i 
over. It's kinder funny to sit back here in quiet and 
listen in the war, isn't it ?" I agreed it was weird and .» 
it was. I 

In darkness again at the end of a hard day on th(: 
road, we parked the guns that night in a little village 
which was headquarters for our regiment and where I 
spent the night writing by an old oil lamp in the Mayor's 
office. A former Chicago bellhop who spoke better Ital- 
ian than English and naturally should, was sleeping on 
a blanket roll on the floor near me. On the walls of 
the room were posted numerous flag-decked proclama- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 213 

tions, some now yellow with the time that had passed 
over them since their issue back in 1914. They pertained 
to the mobilisation of the men of the village, men whose 
names remain now only as a memory. 

But in their place was the new khaki-clad Chicago 
bellhop snoring ther^ on the floor and several thousand 
more as sturdy and ready as he, all billeted within a 
stone's throw of that room. They were here to finish 
the fight begun by those village peasants who had 
marched away four years before when the Mayor of 
the town posted that bulletin. These Americans stood 
ready to go down to honoured graves beside them. 

Our division was under the French high command 
and was buried in the midst of the mighty preparations 
then on foot. Our ranks were full, our numbers strong, 
our morale high. Every officer and man in the organi- 
sation had the feeling that the eyes of dashing French 
comrades-in-arms and hard fighting British brothers 
were on them. Our inspiration was in the belief that 
the attention of the Allied nations of the world and 
more particularly the hope and pride of our own people 
across the sea, was centred upon us. With that sacred 
feeling, the first division stood resolute to meet the test. 

Some of the disquieting news then prevalent in the 
nervous civilian areas back of the lines, reached us, but 
its effect, as far as I could see, was nil. Our officers 
and men were as unconcerned about the reports of enemy 
successes as though we were children in the nursery of 
a burning house and the neighbourhood was ringing with 
fire alarms. German advances before Amiens, enemy 
rushes gaining gory ground in Flanders, carried no 
shock to the high resolve that existed in the Allied re- 
serves of which we were a part. 

Our army knew nothing but confidence. If there was 



214 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

other than optimism to be derived from the current 
events, then our army was inclined to consider such a 
result as gratifying, because it could be calculated to 
create a greater measure of speed and assistance from 
the slowly functioning powers in America. The reason- 
ing was that any possible pessimism would hurry to the 
wheel every American shoulder that had failed to take 
up its individual war burden under the wave of optimism. 
The army had another reason for its optimism. Our 
officers knew something about the dark days that had 
preceded the first battle at the Marne. They were fa- 
miliar with the gloomy outlook in 1914 that had led to 
the hurried removal of the French government from 
Paris to Bordeaux. Our men recalled how the enemy 
was then overrunning Belgium, how the old British 
"Contemptibles" were in retreat, and how the German 
was within twenty miles of the French capital. 

In that crisis had come the message by Foch and the 
brilliant stroke with which he backed it up. What 
followed was the tumble and collapse of the straddling 
German effort and the forced transformation in the 
enemy's plans from a war of six weeks to a war of four 
years. 

Our army knew the man who turned the trick at the 
Marne. We knew that we were under his command, 
and not the slightest doubt existed but that it was now 
our destiny to take part in another play of the cards 
which would call and cash the German hand. Our 
forces in the coming engagements were staking their 
lives, to a man, on Foch's ace in the hole. 

That was the deadly earnestness of our army's con- 
fidence in Foch. The capture of a hill top in Picardy 
or the loss of a village in Flanders had no effect upon 
that confidence. It found reinforcement in the belief 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 215 

that since March 21st, America had gained a newer and 
keener appreciation of her part in the war. 

Our army began to feel that the American people, 
more than three thousand miles away from the battle 
fronts, would have a better understanding of the intense 
meaning that had been already conveyed in General 
Pershing's words, ''Confidence is needed but overconfi- 
dence is dangerous." In other words, our soldiers in 
the field began to feel that home tendencies that under- 
rated the enemy's strength and underestimated the effort 
necessary to overcome him, had been corrected. The 
army had long felt that such tendencies had made good 
material for Billy Sunday's sermons and spread-eagle 
speeches, but they hadn't loaded guns or placed men in 
the front line. 

We felt that this crisis had brought to America a bet- 
ter realisation of the fact that Germany had .rot been 
beaten and that she was yet to be beaten and that Amer- 
ica's share in the administration of that beating would 
have to be greater and more determined than had here- 
tofore been deemed necessary. It was the hope of the 
army that this realisation would reach the people with 
a shock. Shocks were known to make realisations less 
easy to forget. Forgetfulness from then on might have 
meant Allied defeat. 

Lagging memories found no billet in the personnel of 
that First Division. Its records, registering five hun- 
dred casualties, kept in mind the fact that the division 
had seen service on the line and still had scores to settle 
with the enemy. 

Its officers and men, with but few exceptions, had 
undergone their baptism in German fire and had found 
the experience not distasteful. The division had esprit 
which made the members of every regiment and brigade 



2i6 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

in it vie with the members of any other regiment and 
brigade. If you had asked any enlisted man in the divi- 
sion, he would have told you that his company, battery, 
regiment or brigade "had it all over the rest of them." 
That was the feeling that our division brought with 
them when we marched into Picardy to meet the German 
push. That was the spirit that dominated officers and 
men during the ten days that we spent in manoeuvres and 
preparations in that concentration area in the vicinity 
of the ancient town of Chaumont-en-Vexin in the de- 
partment of the Oise. It was the feeling that made us 
anxious and eager to move on up to the actual front. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 217 



CHAPTER XI 

UNDER FIRE 

On the day before our departure for the front from 
the concentration area in Picardy, every officer in the 
division, and they numbered almost a thousand, was 
summoned to the temporary divisional headquarters, 
where General Pershing addressed to them remarks 
which have since become known as the commander's 
"farewell to the First." We had passed out from his 
command and from then on our orders were to come 
from the commander of the French army to which the 
division was to be attached. 

General Pershing stood on a mound at the rear of a 
beautiful chateau of Norman architecture, the Chateau 
du Jard, located on the edge of the town of Chaumont- 
en-Vexin. The officers ranged themselves in informal 
rows on the grass. Birds were singing somewhere above 
in the dense, green foliage, and sunlight was filtering 
through the leaves of the giant trees. 

The American commander spoke of the traditions 
which every American soldier should remember in the 
coming trialsj. He referred to the opportunity then 
present for us, whose fathers established liberty in the 
New World, now to assist the Old World in throwing off 
its yoke of tyranny. Throughout this touching fare- 
well to the men he had trained — to his men then leaving 
for scenes from which some of them would never return 
— the commander's voice never betrayed the depth of 
feeling behind it. 

That night we made final arrangements for the mor- 



2i8 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

row's move. I travelled with the artillery where or- 
ders were received for the reduction of all packs to the 
lightest possible as all men would be dismounted and the 
baggage wagons would be reserved for food, ammuni- 
tion and officers' luggage only. Officers' packs, by the 
same order, had to shrink from one hundred and fifty 
pounds to twenty. 

There were many misgivings that night as owners 
were forced to discard cherished belongings. Cumber- 
some camp paraphernalia, rubber bathtubs, pneumatic 
mattresses, extra blankets, socks, sweaters, etc., all parted 
company from erstwhile owners. That order caused 
many a heart-break and the abandonment of thousands 
of dollars' worth of personal equipment in our area. 

I have no doubt that some of the village maidens were 
surprised at the remarkable generosity of officers and 
men who presented them with expensive toilet sets. 
Marie at the village estaminet received five of them all 
fitted in neat leather rolls and inscribed with as many 
different sets of initials. The old men of the town 
gloried in the sweaters, woollen socks and underwear. 

There was no chance to fudge on the slim baggage 
order. An officer, bound by duty, weighed each officer's 
kit as it reached the baggage wagons and those tipping 
.the scales at more than the prescribed twenty pounds, 
were thrown out entirely. I happened to be watching 
the loading when it came turn for the regimental band 
to stow away its encased instruments in one wagon. It 
must be remembered that musicians at the front are 
stretcher bearers. The baggage judge lifted the case 
containing the bass horn. 

"No horn in the world ever weighed that much," he 
said. ''Open it up," was the terse command. The case 
was opened and the base horn pulled out. The baggage 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 219 

officer began operations on the funnel. I watched him 
remove from the horn's interior two spare blankets, four 
pairs of socks, an extra pair of pants and a carton of 
cigarettes. He then inserted his arm up to the shoulder 
in the instrument's innards and brought forth two apples, 
a small tin of blackberry jam and an Qgg wrapped in an 
undershirt. 

The man who played the "umpah umpah" in the band 
was heartbroken. The clarinet player, who had watched 
the operation and whose case followed for inspection, 
saved the inspector trouble by removing an easily hidden 
chain of sausage. I noticed one musician who was ob- 
serving the ruthless pillage but, strangely, his countenance 
was the opposite of the others. He was actually smil- 
ing. I inquired the cause of his mirth. 

"Wht'n we packed up, those guys with the big hollow 
instruments all had the laugh on me," he said. **Now 
IVe got it on them. I play the piccolo." 

All the mounted men under the rank of battery com- 
manders were dismounted in order to save the horses 
for any possibilities in the war of movement. A dis- 
mounted artilleryman carrying a pack and also armed 
with a rifle, is a most disconsolate subject to view just 
prior to setting out for a long tramp. In his opinion, 
he has been reduced too near the status of the despised 
doughboy. 

It really doesn't seem like artillery unless one has a 
horse to ride and a saddle to strap one's pack on. In 
the lineup before we started, I saw two of these gunners 
standing by weighted down with their cumbersome, un- 
accustomed packs. They were backed against a stone 
wall and were easing their burdens by resting the packs 
on the stone ledge. Another one similarly burdened 
passed and, in a most serious tone, inquired : 



220 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

*'Say, would either of you fellows like to buy another 
blanket roll?" The reply of two dejected gunners 
would bar this story from publication. 

We were on the march early in the morning, but not 
without some initial confusion by reason of the inevitable 
higher orders which always come at the last minute to 
change programmes. On parallel roads through that zone 
of unmarred beauty which the Normans knew, our col- 
umns swung along the dusty highroads. 

There were many who held that America would not 
be thoroughly awake to the full meaning of her partic- 
ipation in the war until the day there came back from 
the battlefields a long list of casualties — a division wiped 
out or decimated. Many had heard the opinions ex- 
pressed in France and many firmly believed that nothing 
short of such a shock would arouse our nation to the 
exertion of the power and speed necessary to save the 
Allied cause from defeat. 

On this march, that thought recurred to some and 
perhaps to many who refrained soberly from placing it 
in words. I knew several in the organisation who felt 
that we were on our way to that sacrifice. I can not esti- 
mate in how many minds the thought became tangible, 
but among several whom I heard seriously discussing the 
matter, I found a perfect willingness on their part to 
meet the unknown — to march on to the sacrifice with 
the feeling that if the loss of their life would help bring 
about a greater prosecution of the war by our country, 
then they would not have died in vain. 

If this was the underlying spirit, it had no effect 
whatever upon outward appearances which could hardly 
be better described than with Cliff Raymond's lilting 
words: "There are roses in their rifles just the same." If 
this move was on to the sacrifice — if death awaited at 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 221 

the end of the road, then those men were marching 
toward it with a song. 

It takes a hard march to test the morale of soldiers. 
When the feet are road-sore, when the legs ache from 
the endless pounding of hobnails on hard macadam, 
when the pack straps cut and burn to the shoulder blades, 
and the tin hat weighs down like a crown of thorns, 
then keep your ear open for a jest and if your hearing 
is rewarded, you will know that you march with men. 

Many times that first day, those jests came to enliven 
dejected spirits and put smiles on sweat-rinsed faces. I 
recall our battery as it negotiated the steep hills. When 
the eight horses attached to the gun carriages were 
struggling to pull them up the incline, a certain subaltern 
with a voice slow, but damnably insistent, would sing 
out, "Cannoneers, to the wheels." This reiterated com- 
mand at every grade forced aching shoulders already 
weary with their own burdens to strain behind the heavy 
carriages and ease the pull on the animals. 

Once on a down grade, our way crossed the 
tracks of a narrow gauge railroad. Not far from the 
crossing could be seen a dinky engine puffing and snorting 
furiously in terrific effort to move up the hill its at- 
tached train of loaded ammunition cars. The engine 
was having a hard fight when some light-hearted weary 
one in our column gave voice to something which brought 
up the smile. 

"Cannoneers, to the wheel!" was the shout and even 
the dignified subaltern whose pet command was the butt 
of the exclamation, joined in the wave of laughs that 
went down the line. 

An imposing chateau of the second empire now pre- 
sided over by an American heiress, the wife of a French 
officer, was regimental headquarters that night. Its 



222 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

bams and outbuildings were the cleanest in France ac-' 
cording to individuals who had slept in so many barns 
that they feel qualified to judge. 

'Tainfully sanitary," said a young lieutenant, who 
remarked that the tile floor might make a stable smell 
sweeter but it hardly offered the slumbering possibilities 
of a straw shakedown. While the men arranged their 
blankets in those quarters, the horses grazed and rolled 
in green paddocks fenced with white painted rails. The 
cooks got busy with the evening meal and the men off 
duty started exploring the two nearby villages. 

For the American soldier, financial deals were always 
a part of these explorations. It was seldom more than 
an hour after his arrival in a populated village before 
the stock market and board of trade were in full opera- 
tion. These mobile establishments usually were set up 
in the village square if headquarters did not happen to' 
be located too close. There were plenty to play the 
roles of bulls and bears; there was much bidding and 
shouting of quotations. 

The dealings were not in bushels of wheat or shares 
in oils or rails Delicacies were the bartered commodi- 
ties and of these, eggs were the strongest. The German 
intelligence service could have found no surer way to 
trace the perigrinations of American troops about France, 
than to follow up the string of eggless villages they left 
behind them. 

As soon as billets were located, those without extra 
duty began the egg canvass of the town. There was 
success for those who made the earliest start and struck 
the section with the most prolific hens. Eggs were 
bought at various prices before news of the American 
arrivals had caused peasants to set up a new scale of 
charges. The usual late starter and the victim of ar- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 223 

rangements was the officer's striker who lost valuable 
time by having to take care of his officer's luggage and 
get the latter established in billets. It was then his duty 
to procure eggs for the officer's mess. 

By that time, all natural egg sources had been obliter- 
ated and the only available supply was cornered by the 
soldiers' board of trade. The desired breakfast food 
could be obtained in that place only. It was the last 
and only resort of the striker, who is euphoniously known 
as a dog robber. In the board of trade he would find 
soldiers with helmets full of eggs which could be bought 
at anywhere from two to three times their original price. 
It was only by the payment of such prices that the officer 
was able to get anything that could possibly leave a 
trace of yellow on his chin. If there was a surplus, the 
soldiers themselves had ample belt room to accommo- 
date it. 

In one village tavern, I saw one soldier eat fourteen 
eggs which he ordered Madame to fry in succession. I 
can believe it because I saw it. Madame saw it also, 
but I feel that she did not believe her eyes. A captain 
of the Judge Advocate's office also witnessed the gastro- 
nomic feat. 

"Every one of those eggs was bought and paid for," 
he said. "Our department handles claims for all stolen 
or destroyed property and we have yet to receive the 
first claim from this town. Of course every one knows 
that a hungry man will steal to eat and there are those 
who hold that theft for the purpose of satisfying de- 
mands of the stomach is not theft. But our records 
show that the American soldier in France is ready to, 
willing to, and capable of buying what he needs out- 
side of his ration allowance. 

"We have some instances of stealing, but most of 



224 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

them are trivial. Recently, we took from the pay of 
one whole battalion the cost of thirty-one cheeses which 
were taken from a railroad restaurant counter. The 
facts were that some of our troops en route were hungry 
and the train was stopping only for five minutes and 
the woman behind the counter didn't have time to even 
take, much less change, the money offered, so the men 
grabbed the cheeses and ran out just in time to board the 
train as it was moving off. 

*There was one case, though, in which Uncle Sam 
didn't have the heart to charge any one. He paid the 
bill himself and maybe if you could send the story back 
home, the citizens who paid it would get a laugh worth 
the money. It happened during a recent cold spell when 
some of our troops were coming from seaboard to the 
interior. They travelled in semi-opened horse cars and 
it was cold, damn cold. 

"One of the trains stopped in front of a small rail- 
road station and six soldiers with cold hands and feet 
jumped from the car and entered the waiting room, in 
the centre of which was a large square coal stove with 
red hot sides. One man stood on another one's shoulders 
and disjointed the stove pipe. At the same time, two 
others placed poles under the bottom of the stove, lifted 
it off the floor and walked out of the room with it. 

'They placed it in the horse car, stuck the pipe out 
of one door and were warm for the remainder of the 
trip. It was the first time in the history of that little 
village that anybody had ever stolen a red hot stove. 
The French government, owning the railroads, made 
claim against us for four hundred francs for the stove 
and eleven francs' worth of coal in it. Uncle Sam paid 
the bill and was glad to do it. 

"I know of only one case to beat that one and that 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 22^ 

concerned an infantryman who stole a hive full of honey 
and took the bees along with it. The medical depart- 
ment handled one aspect of the case and the provost 
marshal the other. The bees meted out some of the 
punishment and we stung his pay for the costs." 

There was one thing, however, that men on the move 
found it most difficult to steal and that was sleep. So 
at least it seemed the next morning when we swung 
into the road at daybreak and continued our march into 
the north. Much speculation went the rounds as to our 
destination. The much debated question was as to 
whether our forces would be incorporated with Foch's 
reserve armies and held in readiness for a possible 
counter offensive, or whether we should be placed in one 
of the line armies and assigned to holding a position in 
the path of the German push. But all this conjecture 
resulted in nothing more than passing the time. Our 
way led over byroads and side lanes which the French 
master of circulation had laid down for us. 

Behind an active front, the French sanctified their 
main roads and reserved them for the use of fast motor 
traffic and the rushing up of supplies or reserves in cases 
of necessity. Thousands of poilus too old for combat 
duty did the repair work on these main arteries. All 
minor and slow moving traffic was side-tracked to keep 
the main line clear. At times we were forced to cross 
the main highroads and then we encountered the forward 
and backward stream of traffic to and from the front. 
At one of those intersections, I sought the grass bank at 
the side of the road for rest. Two interesting actors in 
this great drama were there before me. One was an 
American soldier wearing a blue brassard with the white 
letters M. P. He was a military policeman on duty as a 



226 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

road marker whose function is to regulate traffic and 
prevent congestion. 

Beside him was seated a peculiar looking person whose 
knee length skirts of khaki exposed legs encased in wrap 
puttees. A motor coat of yellow leather and the visored 
cap of a British Tommy completed the costume. The 
hair showing beneath the crown of the cap was rather 
long and straight, but betrayed traces of having been 
recently close cropped. For all her masculine appear- 
ance, she was French and the young road marker was 
lavishing upon her everything he had gleaned in a 
Freshman year of French in a Spokane high school. 

I offered my cigarette case and was surprised when 
the girl refrained. That surprise increased when I saw 
her extract from a leather case of her own a full fledged 
black cigar which she proceeded to light and smoke with 
gusto. When I expressed my greater surprise, she in- 
creased it by shrugging her shoulders prettily, plunging 
one gauntleted hand into a side pocket and producing 
a pipe with a pouch of tobacco. 

There was nothing dainty about that pipe. It had 
no delicate amber stem nor circlet of filigree gold. 
There was no meerschaum ornamentation. It was just 
a good old Jimmy pipe with a full-grown cake in the 
black burnt bowl, and a well bitten, hard rubber mouth 
piece. It looked like oije of those that father used to 
consent to have boiled once a year, after mother had 
charged it with rotting the lace curtains. If war makes 
men of peace-time citizens, then 

But she was a girl and her name was Yvonne. The 
red-winged letter on her coat lapel placed her in the auto- 
mobile service and the motor ambulance stationed at the 
road side explained her special branch of work. She 
inquired the meaning of my correspondent's insignia and 




FIRST OF THE GREAT FRAKCO-AMERICAK COUXTER-OFFEXSIVE AT CHATFAU- 
THIERRY. THE FREXCH BABY TANKS, KXOWK AS "CHARS d'asSAUTS,'' 
ENTERIJ^G THE WOOD OF VILI.ERS COTTORET, SOUTHWEST OF SOISSOXS 




YANKS AND POILUS VIEWING THE CITY OF CHATEAU-THIERRY, 
IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY, THE YANKS TURNED THE TIDE 
OF BATTLE AGAINST THE HUNS 



WHERE, 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 227 

then explained that she had drawn pastelles for a Paris 
pubHcation before the war, but had been transporting 
blesses since. The French lesson proceeded and Spo- 
kane Steve and I learned from her that the longest word 
in the French language is spelled ''Anticonstitutionelle- 
ment." I expressed the hope that some day both of ns 
would be able to pronounce it. 

On the girl's right wrist was a silver chain bracelet 
with identification disk. In response to our interested 
gaze, she exhibited it to us, and upon her own volition, 
informed us that she was a descendant of the same fam- 
ily as Jeanne d'Arc. Steve heard and winked to me with 
a remark that they couldn't pull any stuff like that on any- 
body from Spokane, because he had never heard that 
that Maid of Orleans had been married. Yvonne must 
have understood the last word because she explained 
forthwith that she had not claimed direct descendence 
from the famous Jeanne, but from the same family. 
Steve looked her in the eye and said, "J^-y compraw." 

She explained the meaning of the small gold and silver 
medals suspended from the bracelet. She detached two 
and presented them to us. One of them bore in relief 
the image of a man in flowing robes carrying a child on 
his shoulder, and the reverse depicted a tourist driving 
a motor through hilly country. 

'That is St. Christophe," said Yvonne. "He is the 
patron saint of travellers. His medal is good luck 
against accidents on the road. Here is one of St. Elias. 
He is the new patron saint of the aviators. You re- 
member. Didn't he go to heaven in a fiery chariot, or 
fly up on golden wings or something like that? Any- 
how, all the aviators wear one of his medals." 

St. Christophe was attached to my identification disk. 
Steve declared infantrymen travelled too slowly ever 



228 "AND THEY THOUGHT 



to have anything happen to them and that he was going 
to give his to a friend who drove a truck. When I fell 
in line with the next passing battery and moved down the 
road, Spokane Steve and the Yvonne of the family of 
Jeanne had launched into a discussion of prize fighting 
and chewing tobacco. 

In billets that night, in a village not far from Beauvais, 
the singing contest for the prize of fifty dollars offered I 
by the battalion commander Major Robert R. McCor- 
mick was resumed with intense rivalry between the 
tenors and basses of batteries A and B. A "B" Battery 
man was croaking Annie Laurie, when an *'A" Battery 
booster in the audience remarked audibly, 

"Good Lord, I'd rather hear first call." First call is 
the bugle note that disturbs sleep and starts the men on 
the next day's work. 

A worried lieutenant found me in the crowd around 
the rolling kitchen and inquired : ^ 

"Do you know whether there's a provost guard oni 
that inn down the road?" I couldn't inform him, but 
inquired the reason for his alarm. 

"I've got a hunch that the prune juice is running knee 
deep to-night," he replied, "and I don't want any of 
my section trying to march to-morrow with swelled I 
heads." 

"Prune juice" is not slang. It is a veritable expres- 
sion and anybody who thinks that the favourite of the 
boarding house table cannot produce a fermented article 
that is tres fort in the way of a throat burner, is greatly 
mistaken. In France the fermented juice of the prune 
is called "water of life," but it carries a "dead to the 
world" kick. The simple prune, which the army used 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 229 

to call "native son" by reason of its California origin, 
now ranks with its most inebriating sisters of the vine. 

The flow of eau de vie must have been dammed at the 
inn. On the road the next day, I saw a mule driver 
wearing a sixteen candle power black eye. When I in- 
quired the source of the lamp shade, he replied : 

*This is my first wound in the war of movement. Me 
and the cop had an offensive down in that town that's 
spelt like Sissors but you say it some other way." I 
knew he was thinking of Gisors. 

The third and fourth day's march brought us into 
regions nearer the front, where the movement of refu- 
gees on the roads seemed greater, where the roll of the 
guns came constantly from the north, where enemy mo- 
tors droned through the air on missions of frightfulness. 

There was a major in our regiment whose knowledge 
of French was confined to the single affirmative exclama- 
tion, *'Ah, oui." He worked this expression constantly 
in the French conversation with a refugee woman from 
the invaded districts. She with her children occupied 
one room in the cottage. When the major started to 
leave, two days later, the refugee woman addressed him 
in a reproving tone and with tears. He could only re- 
ply with sympathetic "Ah, oui's," which seemed to make 
her all the more frantic. 

An interpreter straightened matters out by informing 
the major that the woman wanted to know why he was 
leaving without getting her furniture. 

"What furniture ?" replied the puzzled major. 

"Why, she says," said the interpreter, "that you 
promised her you would send three army trucks to her 
house back of the German lines and bring all of her house- 
hold goods to this side of the line. She says that she ex- 
plained all of it to you and you said, *Ah, oui.' " 



230 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

The major has since abandoned the "ah, oui" habit. 

At one o'clock one morning, orders reached the bat- 
taHon for reconnaissance detail ; each battery to be ready 
to take road by daylight. We were off at break of day 
in motor trucks with a reel cart of telephone wire 
hitched on behind. Thirty minutes later we rumbled 
along roads under range of German field pieces and 
arrived in a village designated as battalion headquarters 
to find that we were first to reach the sector allotted for 
American occupation. The name of the town was 
Serevilliers. 

Our ears did not delude us about the activity of the 
sector, but I found that officers and men of the deta"' 
were inclined to accept the heavy shelling in a noi 
committal manner until a French interpreter attached 
to us remarked that artillery action in the sector was as 
intense as any he had experienced at Verdun. 

If the ever present crash of shells reminded us that 
we were opposite the peak of the German push, there 
was plenty of work to engage minds that might other- 
wise have paid too much attention to the dangers of their 
location. A chalk cellar with a vaulted ceiling and 
ventilators, unfortunately opening on the enemy side of 
the upper structure, was selected as the battalion com- 
mand post. The men went to work immediately to 
remove piles of dirty billeting straw. under which was 
found glass, china, silverware and family portraits, all 
of which had been hurriedly buried by the owners of the 
house not two weeks before. 

While linemen planned communications, and battery 
officers surveyed gun positions, the battalion commander 
and two orietiting officers went forward to the frontal 
zone to get the first look at our future targets and estab- 
lish observation posts from which our firing could be 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 



23] 



directed. I accompanied the small party, which was led 
by a French officer familiar with the sector. It was upon 
his advice that we left the roads and took cuts across 
fields, avoiding the path and road intersections and tak- 
;i ing advantage of any shelter offered by the ground. 

Virgin fields on our way bore the enormous craters 
left by the explosion of poorly directed German shells of 
heavy calibre. Orders were to throw ourselves face 
downward upon the ground upon the sound of each ap- 
proaching missile. There is no text book logic on judg- 
ing from the sound of a shell whether it has your address 
written on it, but it is surprising how quick that educa- 
tion may be obtained by experience. Several hours of 
walking and dropping to the ground resulted in an at- 
tuning of the ears which made it possible to judge ap- 
proximately whether that oncoming, whining, unseen 
1 thing from above would land dangerously near or 
ineffectively far from us. The knowledge was common 
to all of us and all of our ears were keenly tuned for the 
sounds. Time after time the collective judgment and 
consequent prostration of the entire party was proven 
well timed by the arrival of a shell uncomfortably close. 

We gained a wooded hillside that bristled with busy 
French seventy-fives, which the German tried in vain 
to locate with his howitzer fire. We mounted a forest 
plateau, in the centre of which a beautiful white chateau 
still held out against the enemy's best efforts to locate it 
with his guns. One shell addressed in this special direc- 
tion fortunately announced its coming with such unmis- 
takable vehemence that our party all landed in the same 
shell hole at once. 

Every head was down when the explosion came. 
Branches and pieces of tree trunk were whirled upward, 
and the air became populated with deadly bumble bees 



232 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and humming birds, for such is the sound that the shell 
splinters make. When I essayed our shell hole after- 
ward, I couldn't fathom how five of us had managed to 
accommodate ourselves in it, but in the rush of necessity, 
no difficulty had been found. 

Passing from the woods forward, one by one, over 
a bald field, we skirted a village that was being heavilyv* 
shelled, and reached a trench on the side of the hill in 
direct view of the German positions. The enemy par- 
tially occupied the ruined village of Cantigny not eight 
hundred yards away, but our glasses were unable to 
pick up the trace of a single person in the debris. French 
shells, arriving endlessly in the village, shot geysers of 
dust and wreckage skyward. It was from this village, 
several days later, that our infantry patrols brought in 
several prisoners, all of whom were suffering from shell 
shock. But our men in the village opposite underwent 
the same treatment at the hands of the German artillery. 

It was true of this sector that what corresponded to 
the infantry front line was a much safer place to be in 
than in the reserve positions, or about the gun pits in 
villages or along roads in our back area. Front line 
activity was something of minor consideration, as both 
sides seemed to have greater interests at other points 
and, in addition to that, the men of both sides were busy 
digging trenches and shelters. There were numerous 
machine gun posts which swept with lead the indeter- 
minate region between the lines, and at night, patrols 
from both sides explored as far as possible the holdings 
of the other side. 

Returning to the battalion headquarters that night by 
a route apparently as popular to German artillery as was 
the one we used in the forenoon, we found a telephone 
switchboard in full operation in the sub-cellar, and mess 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 233 

headquarters established in a clean kitchen above the 
ground. Food was served in the kitchen and we noticed 
that one door had suffered some damage which had 
caused it to be boarded up and that the plaster ceiling of 
the room was full of fresh holes and rents in a dozen 
places. At every shock to the earth, a little stream of 

: oats would come through the holes from the attic above. 
These falling down on the officer's neck in the midst of 
a meal, would have no effect other than causing him to 
call for his helmet to ward off the cereal rain. 

[1 We learned more about the sinister meaning of that 

'broken door and the ceiling holes when it became neces- 
sary later in the evening to move mess to a safer loca- 

! tion. The kitchen was located just thirty yards back of 
the town cross roads and an unhealthy percentage of 
German shells that missed the intersection caused too 
much interruption in our cook's work. 

We found that the mess room was vacant by reason 
of the fact that it had become too unpleasant for French 
officers, who had relinquished it the day before. We 
followed their suite and were not surprised when an 
infantry battalion mess followed us into the kitchen and 
just one day later, to the hour, followed us out of it. 

Lying on the floor in that chalk cellar that night and 
listening to the pound of arriving shells on nearby cross 
roads and battery positions, we estimated how long it 
would be before this little village would be completely 
levelled to the ground. Already gables were disappear- 
ing from houses, sturdy chimneys were toppling and 
stone walls were showing jagged gaps. One whole wall 
of the village school had crumbled before one blast, so 
that now the wooden desks and benches of the pupils and 
their books and papers were exposed to view from the 



234 "AND THEY THOUGHT 1 

street. On the blackboard was a penmanship model 
which read : 

*'Let no day pass without having saved something." 

An officer came down the dark stone steps into the 
cellar, kicked off his boots and lay down on sorne blankets 
in one corner. 

"I just heard some shells come in that didn't explode/'! 
I remarked. "Do you know whether they were gas or 
duds?" 

"I don't know whether they were gas or not," he said, 
"but I do know that that horse out in the yard is cer- 
tainly getting ripe." 

The defunct animal referred to occupied an uncovered 
grave adjoining our ventilator. Sleeping in a gas mask 
was not the most unpleasant form of slumber. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 235 

CHAPTER Xn 

BEFORE CANTIGNY 

It is strange how sleep can come at the front in sun 
roundings not unlike the interior of a boiler factory, but 
it does. I heard of no man who slept in the cellars be- 
neath the ruins of Serevilliers that night being disturbed 
by the pounding of the shells and the jar of the ground, 
both of which were ever present through our dormant 
senses. Stranger still was the fact that at midnight 
when the shelling almost ceased, for small intervals, 
almost every sleeper there present v/as aroused by the 
sudden silence. When the shelling was resumed, sleep 
returned. 

"When I get back on the farm outside of Chicago," 
said one officer, "I don't believe I will be able to sleep 
unless I get somebody to stand under my window and 
shake a thunder sheet all night." 

It is also remarkable how the tired human, under such 
conditions, can turn off the switch on an energetic imagi- 
nation and resign himself completely to fate. In those 
cellars that night, every man knew that one direct hit 
of a -^'two ten" German shell on his particular cellar 
wall, would mean taps for everybody in the cave. Such 
a possibility demands consideration in the slowest mov- 
ing minds. 

Mentalities and morale of varying calibre cogitate upon 
this matter at varying lengths, but I doubt in the end 
if there is much difference in the conclusion arrived at. 
Such reflections produce the inevitable decision that 
if one particular shell is coming into your particular 



236 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

abode, there is nothing you can do to keep it out, so 
"What the hell!'* You might just as well go to sleep 
and forget it because if it gets you, you most probably 
will never know anything about it anyway. I believe 
such is the philosophy of the shelled. 

It must have been three o'clock in the morning when 
a sputtering motor cycle came to a stop in the shelter 
of our cellar door and a gas guard standing there ex- 
changed words with some one. It ended in the sound of 
hobnails on the stone steps as the despatch rider de- 
scended, lighting his way with the yellow shaft from an 
electric pocket lamp. 

"What is it?" inquired the Major, awakening and roll- 
ing over on his side. 

"Just come from regimental headquarters," said the 
messenger. "Fm carrying orders on to the next town. 
Adjutant gave me this letter to deliver to you, sir. The 
Adjutant's compliments, sir, and apologies for waking 
you, but he said the mail just arrived and the envelope 
looked important and he thought you might like to get 
it right away." 

"Hmm," said the Major, weighing the official looking 
envelope in one hand and observing both the American 
stamps in one corner and numerous addresses to which 
the missive had been forwarded. He tore off one end 
and extracted a sheet which he unfolded and read while 
the messenger waited at his request. I was prepared to 
hear of a promotion order from Washington and made 
ready to offer congratulations. The Major smiled and 
tossed the paper over to me, at the same time reaching 
for a notebook and fountain pen. 

"Hold a light for me,'* he said to the messenger as he 
sat on the edge of the bed and began writing. "This is 
urgent and I will make answer now. You will mail it 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 237 

at regimental headquarters." As his pen scratched 
across the writing pad, I read the letter he had just re- 
ceived. The stationery bore the heading of an alumni 
association of a well-known eastern university. The 
contents ran as follows : 

"Dear Sir: What are you doing for your country? 
What are you doing to help win the war? While our 
brave boys are in France facing the Kaiser's shell and 
gas, the alumni association has directed me as secretary 
to call upon all the old boys of the university and invite 
them to do their bit for Uncle Sam's fighting men. We 
ask your subscription to a fund which we are raising to 
send cigarettes to young students of the university who 
are now serving with the colours and who are so nobly 
maintaining the traditions of our Alma Mater. Please 
fill out the enclosed blank, stating your profession and 
present occupation. Fraternally yours, Secre- 
tary." 

The Major was watching me with a smile as I con- 
cluded reading. 

''Here's my answer," he said, reading from a note- 
book leaf : 

''Your letter reached me to-night in a warm little 
village in France. With regard to my present profes- 
sion, will inform you that I am an expert in ammuni- 
tion trafficking and am at present occupied in exporting 
large quantities of shells to Germany over the air route. 
Please find enclosed check for fifty francs for cigarettes 
for youngsters who, as you say, are so nobly upholding 
the sacred traditions of our school. After all, we old 
boys should do something to help along the cause. Yours 



238 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

to best the Kaiser. , Major. Field 

Artillery, U. S. A. On front in France.'* 

"I guess that ought to hold them," said the Major 
as he folded the letter and addressed an envelope. It 
rather seemed to me that it would but before I could 
finish the remark, the Major was back asleep in his 
blankets. 

By daylight, I explored the town, noting the havoc 
wrought by the shells that had arrived in the night. I 
had thought in seeing refugees moving southward along 
the roads, that there was little variety of articles related 
to human existence that they failed to carry away with 
them. But one inspection of the abandoned abodes of 
the unfortunate peasants of Serevilliers was enough to 
convince me of the greater variety of things that had 
to be left behind. Old people have saving habits and 
the French peasants pride themselves upon never throw- 
ing anything away. 

The cottage rooms were littered with the discarded 
clothing of all ages, discarded but saved. Old shoes and 
dresses, ceremonial high hats and frock coats, brought 
forth only for weddings or funerals, were mixed on the 
floor with children's toys, prayer books and broken china. 
Shutters and doors hung aslant by single hinges. In the 
village estaminet much mud had been tracked in by ex- 
ploring feet and the red tiled floor was littered with straw 
and pewter measuring mugs, dear to the heart of the 
antiquary. 

The ivory balls were gone from the dust covered bil- 
liard table, but the six American soldiers billeted in the 
cellar beneath had overcome this discrepancy. They en- 
joyed after dinner billiards just the same with three 
large wooden balls from a croquet court in the garden. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 239 

A croquet ball is a romping substitute when it hits the 
green cushions. 

That afternoon we laid more wire across fields to the 
next town to the north. Men who do this job are, in 
my opinion, the most daring in any organisation that 
depends for efficiency upon uninterrupted telephone com- 
munication. For them, there is no shelter when a 
deluge of shells pours upon a field across which their 
wire is laid. Without protection of any kind from the 
flying steel splinters, they must go to that spot to repair 
the cut wires and restore communication. During one 
of these shelling spells, I reached cover of the road side 
abri and prepared to await clearer weather. 

In the distance, down the road, appeared a scudding 
cloud of dust. An occasional shell dropping close on 
either side of the road seemed to add speed to the appari- 
tion. As it drew closer, I could see that it was a motor 
cycle of the three wheeled bathtub variety. The rider 
on the cycle was bending close over his handle bars and 
apparently giving her all there was in her, but the bulky 
^gure that filled to overflowing the side car, rode with 
his head well back. 

At every irregularity in the road, the bathtub con- 
traption bounced on its springs, bow and stern rising 
and falling like a small ship in a rough sea. Its nearer 
approach revealed that the giant torso apparent above its 
rim was encased in a double breasted khaki garment 
which might have marked the wearer as either the master 
of a four in hand or a Mississippi steamboat of the ante 
bellum type. The enormous shoulders, thus draped, 
were surmounted by a huge head, which by reason of its 
rigid, backward, star-gazing position appeared mostly as 
chin and double chin. The whole was topped by a huge 
fat cigar which sprouted upward from the elevated chin 



240 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and at times gave forth clouds like the forward smoke- 
stack on the Robert E. Lee. 

I was trying to decide in my mind whether the ele- 
vated chin posture of the passenger was the result of 
pride, bravado or a boil on the Adam's apple, when the 
scudding comet reached the shelter of the protecting bank 
in which was located the chiselled dog kennel that I 
occupied. As the machine came to halt, the superior 
chin depressed itself ninety degrees, and brought into 
view the smiling features of that smile-making gentle- 
man from Paducah — Mr. Irvin S. Cobb. Machine, 
rider and passenger stopped for breath and I made bold 
to ask the intrepid humourist if he suffered from a too 
keen sense of smell or a saw edge collar. 

"I haven't a sensitive nose, a saw edge collar or an 
inordinate admiration for clouds," the creator of Judge 
Priest explained with reference to his former stiff- 
necked pose, "but George here," waving to the driver, 
"took a sudden inspiration for fast movement. The 
jolt almost took my head off and the wind kept me from 
getting it back into position. George stuck his spurs 
into this here flying bootblack stand just about the time 
something landed near us that sounded like a kitchen 
stove half loaded with window weights and window 
panes. I think George made a record for this road. 
I've named it Buh-Looey Boulevard." 

When the strafing subsided we parted and I reached 
the next deserted town without incident. It was almost 
the vesper hour or what had been the allotted time for 
that rite in those parts when I entered the yard of the 
village church, located in an exposed position at a cross 
roads on the edge of the town. A sudden unmistakable 
whirr sounded above and I threw myself on the ground 
just as the high velocity, small calibre German shell 



t 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 241 

registered a direct hit on the side of the nave where roof 
and wall met. 

While steel splinters whistled through the air, an 
avalanche of slate tiles slid down the slanting surface of 
the roof, and fell in a clattering cascade on the graves 
in the yard below. I sought speedy shelter in the lee of 
a tombstone. Several other shells had struck the church- 
yard and one of them had landed on the final resting place 
of the family of Roger La Porte. The massive marble 
slab which had sealed the top of the sunken vault had 
been heaved aside and one wall was shattered, leaving 
open to the gaze a cross section view of eight heavy 
caskets lying in an orderly row. 

Nearby were fresh mounds of yellow earth, sur- 
mounted by now unpainted wooden crosses on which 
were inscribed in pencil the names of French soldiers 
with dates, indicating that their last sacrifice for the 
tri-colour of la Patria had been made ten days prior. 
In the soil at the head of each grave, an ordinary beer 
bottle had been planted neck downward, and through 
the glass one could see the paper scroll on which the 
name, rank and record of the dead man was preserved. 
While I wondered at this prosaic method of identifica- 
tion, an American soldier came around the corner of 
the church, lighted a cigarette and sat down on an old 
tombstone. 

"Stick around if you want to hear something good," 
he said, "That is if that last shell didn't bust the organ. 
There's a French poilu who has come up here every 
afternoon at five o'clock for the last three days and he 
plays the sweetest music on the organ. It certainly is 
great. Reminds me of when I was an altar boy, back 
in St. Paul." 

We waited and soon there came from the rickety old 



242 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

organ loft the soothing tones of an organ. The ancient 
pipes, sweetened by the benedictions of ages, poured 
forth melody to the touch of one whose playing was 
simple, but of the soul. We sat silently among the 
graves as the rays of the dying sun brought to life new 
colouring in the leaded windows of stained glass behind 
which a soldier of France swayed at the ivory keyboard 
and with heavenly harmony ignored those things of 
death and destruction that might arrive through the air 
any minute. 

My companion informed me that the poilu at the 
organ wore a uniform of horizon blue which marked 
him as casual to this village, whose French garrisons 
were Moroccans with the distinctive khaki worn by all 
French colonials in service. The sign of the golden 
crescent on their collar tabs identified them as children 
of Mahomet and one would have known as much any- 
way upon seeing the use to which the large crucifix 
standing in what was the market place had been put. 

So as not to impede trafific through the place, it had 
become necessary to elevate the field telephone wires 
from the ground and send them across the road over- 
head. The crucifix in the centre of the place had pre- 
sented itself as excellent support for this wire and the 
sons of the prophet had utilised it with no intention of 
disrespect. The uplifted right knee of the figure on the 
cross was insulated and wired. War, the moderniser 
and mocker of Christ, seemed to have devised new pain 
for the Teacher of Peace. The crucifixion had become 
the electrocution. 

At the foot of the cross had been nailed a rudely made 
sign conveying to all who passed the French warning 
that this was an exposed crossing and should be nego- 
tiated rapidly. Fifty yards away another board bore 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 243 

the red letters R. A. S. and by following the direction 
indicated by arrows, one arrived at the cellar in which 
the American doctor had established a Relief Aid Station. 
The Medico had furnished his subterranean apartments 
with furniture removed from the house above. 

''Might as well bring it down here and make the 
boys comfortable," he said, "as to leave it up there and, 
let shells make kindling out of it. Funny thing about 
these cellars. Ones with western exposure — that is, 
with doors and ventilators opening on the side away 
from the enemy seem scarcest. That seems to have been 
enough to have revived all that talk about German 
architects having had something to do with the erection 
of those buildings before the war. You remember at 
one time it was said that a number of houses on the 
front had been found to have plaster walls on the side 
nearest the enemy and stone walls on the other side. 
There might be something to it, but I doubt it." 

Across the street an American battalion headquarters 
had been established on the first floor and in the base- 
ment of the house, which appeared the most pretentious 
in the village. Telephone wires now entered the building 
through broken window panes, and within maps had been 
tacked to plaster walls and the furniture submitted to 
the hard usage demanded by war. An old man con- 
spicuous by his civilian clothes wandered about the yard 
here and there, picking up some stray implement or 
nick-nack, hanging it up on a wall or placing it carefully 
aside. 

"There's a tragedy," the battalion commander told me. 
"That man is mayor of this town. He was forced to flee 
with the rest of the civilians. He returned to-day to look 
over the ruins. This is his house we occupy. I explained 
that much of it is as we found it, but that we undoubtedly 



244 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

have broken some things. I could see that every broken 
chair and window and plate meant a heart throb to him, 
but he only looked up at me with his wrinkled old face and 
smiled as he said, 'It is all right, Monsieur. I under- 
stand. C'est la guerre f " 

The old man opened one of his barn doors, revealing a 
floor littered with straw and a fringe of hobnailed Ameri- | 
can boots. A night-working detail was asleep in blankets. 
A sleepy voice growled out something about closing the 
door again and the old man with a polite, ''Pardonnez-moi, 
messieurs," swung the wooden portal softly shut. His 
home — his house — his barn — his straw — c'est la guerre. 

An evening meal of ''corn willy" served on some of 
the Mayor's remaining chinaware, was concluded by a 
final course of fresh spring onions. These came from 
the Mayor's own garden just outside the door. As the 
cook affirmed, it was no difficulty to gather them. 

"Every night Germans drop shells in the garden," he 
said. 'T don't even have to pull 'em. Just go out in the 
morning and pick 'em up off the ground." 

I spent part of the night in gun pits along the road 
side, bordering the town. This particular battery of heav- 
ies was engaged on a night long programme of interdic- 
tion fire laid down with irregular intensity on cross roads 
and communication points in the enemy's back areas. 
Under screens of camouflage netting, these howitzers with 
mottled bores squatting frog-like on their carriages, inter- 
mittently vomited flame, red, green and orange. The de- 
tonations were ear-splitting and cannoneers relieved the 
recurring shocks by clapping their hands to the sides of 
their head and balancing on the toes each time the lan- 
yard was pulled. 

Infantry reserves were swinging along in the road 
directly in back of the guns. They were moving up to 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT " 245 

forward positions and they sang in an undertone as they 
moved in open order. 

"Glor — ree — us, Glor — ree — us ! 
One keg of beer for the four of us. 
Glory be to Mike there are no more of us, 
For four of us can drink it all alone." 

Some of these marchers would come during an inter- 
val of silence to a position on the road not ten feet from 
a darkened, camouflaged howitzer just as it would shat- 
ter the air with a deafening crash. The suddenness and 
unexpectedness of the detonation would make the march- 
ers start and jump involuntarily. Upon such occasions, 
the gun crews would laugh heartily and indulge in good 
natured raillery with the infantrymen. 

"Whoa, Johnny Doughboy, don't you get frightened. 
We were just shipping a load of sauerkraut to the 
Kaiser," said one ear-hardened gunner. "Haven't you 
heard the orders against running your horses? Come 
down to a gallop and take it easy." 

"Gwan, you leatherneck," returns an infantryman, 
"You smell like a livery stable. Better trade that pitch- 
fork for a bayonet and come on up where there's some 
fighting." 

"Don't worry about the fighting, little doughboy," 
came another voice from the dark gun pit. "This is a 
tray forte sector. If you don't get killed the first eight 
days, the orders is to shoot you for loafing. You're 
marching over what's called *the road you don't come 
back on.' " 

A train of ammunition trucks, timed to arrive at the 
moment when the road was unoccupied, put in appear- 
ance as the end of the infantry column passed, and the 



246 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

captain in charge urged the men on to speedy unloading 
and fumed over delays by reason of darkness. The men 
received big shells in their arms and carried them to the 
roadside dumps where they were piled in readiness for 
the guns. The road was in an exposed position and this 
active battery was liable to draw enemy fire at any time, 
so the ammunition train captain was anxious to get his 
charges away in a hurry. 

His fears were not without foundation, because in the 
midst of the unloading, one German missile arrived in a 
nearby field and sprayed the roadway with steel just as 
every one flattened out on the ground. Five ammunition 
hustlers arose with minor cuts and one driver was swear- 
ing at the shell fragment which had gone through the 
radiator of his truck and liberated the water contents. 
The unloading was completed with all speed, and the 
ammunition train moved off, towing a disabled truck. 
With some of the gunners who had helped in unloading, 
I crawled into the chalk dugout to share sleeping quarters 
in the straw. 

"What paper do you represent?" one man asked me as 
he sat in the straw, unwrapping his puttees. I told him. 

"Do you want to know the most popular publication 
around this place?" he asked, and I replied affirmatively." 

"It's called the Daily Woollen Undershirt," he said. 
"Haven't you seen everybody sitting along the roadside 
reading theirs and trying to keep up with things? Be- 
lieve me, it's some reading-matter, too." 

"Don't let him kid you," said the section chief, "I 
haven't had to read mine yet. The doctor fixed up the 
baths in town and yesterday he passed around those flea 
charms. Have you seen them?" 

For our joint inspection there was passed the string 
necklace with two linen tabs soaked in aromatic oil of 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 247 

cedar, while the section chief gave an impromptu lec- 
ture on personal sanitation. It was concluded by a per- 
emptory order from without for extinction of all lights. 
The candle stuck on the helmet top was snuffed and we 
lay down in darkness with the guns booming away on 
either side. 

Our positions were located in a country almost as new 

to war as were the fields of Flanders in the fall of '14. 

A little over a month before it had all been peaceful 

farming land, far behind the belligerent lines. Upon our 

I arrival, its sprouting fields of late wheat and oats were 

luntended and bearing their first harvest of shell craters. 

The abandoned villages now occupied by troops told 
; once more the mute tales of the homeless. The villagers, 
!old men, old women and children, had fled, driving be- 
fore them their cows and farm animals even as they 
themselves had been driven back by the train of German 
shells. In their deserted cottages remained the fresh 
traces of their departure and the ruthless rupturing of 
.home ties, generations old. 

On every hand were evidences of the reborn war of 
semi-movement. One day I would see a battery of light 
guns swing into position by a roadside, see an observing 
officer mount by ladder to a tree top and direct the firing 
of numberless rounds into the rumbling east. By the 
next morning, they would have changed position, rumbled 
off to other parts, leaving beside the road only the marks 
of their cannon wheels and mounds of empty shell cases. 

Between our infantry lines and those of the German, 
there was yet to grow the complete web of woven wire 
entanglements that marred the landscapes on the long es- 
tablished fronts. Still standing, silent sentinels over some 
^f our front line positions were trees, church steeples, 



248 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

dwellings and barns that as yet had not been levelled to 
the ground. Dugouts had begun to show their entrances 
in the surface of the ground and cross roads had started 
to sprout with rudely constructed shelters. Fat sand- 
bags were just taking the places of potted geraniums on 
the sills of first floor windows. War's toll was being ex- 
acted daily, but the country had yet to pay the full price. 
It was going through that process of degeneration toward 
the stripped and barren but it still held much of its erst- 
while beauty. 

Those days before Cantigny were marked by particu- 
larly heavy artillery fire. The ordnance duel was unre- 
lenting and the daily exchange of shells reached an aggre- 
gate far in excess of anything that the First Division 
had ever experienced before. 

Nightly the back areas of the front were shattered 
with shells. The German was much interested in pre- 
venting us from bringing up supplies and munition. 
We manifested the same interest toward him. Ameri- 
can batteries firing at long range, harrassed the road inter- 
sections behind the enemy's line and wooded places 
where relief troops might have been assembled under 
cover of darkness. The expenditure of shells was enor- 
mous but it continued practically twenty-four hours a 
day. German prisoners, shaking from the nervous ef- 
fects of the pounding, certified to the untiring efforts of 
our gunners. 

The small nameless village that we occupied almost 
opposite the German position in Cantigny seemed to re- 
ceive particular attention from the enemy artillery. In 
retaliation, our guns almost levelled Cantigny and a 
nearby village which the enemy occupied. Every hour, 
under the rain of death, the work of digging was con- 
tinued and the men doing it needed no urging from their 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 249 

officers. There was something sinister and emphatic 
about the whine of a "two ten German H. E." that in- 
spired one with a desire to start for the antipodes by the 
shortest and most direct route. 

The number of arrivals by way of the air in that par- 
ticular village every day numbered high in the thousands. 
Under such conditions, no life-loving human could have 
failed to produce the last degree of utihty out of a spade. 
The continual dropping of shells in the ruins and the 
unending fountains of chalk dust and dirt left little for 
the imagination, but one officer told me that it reminded 
him of living in a room where some one was eternally 
beating the carpet. 

This taste of the war of semi-movement was appreci- 
ated by the American soldier. It had in it a dash of nov- 
elty, lacking in the position warfare to which he had 
become accustomed in the mud and marsh of the Moselle 
and the Meuse. For one thing, there were better and 
cleaner billets than had ever been encountered before 
by our men. Fresh, unthrashed oats and fragrant hay 
had been found in the hurriedly abandoned lofts back 
of the line and in the caves and cellars nearer the front. 

In many places the men were sleeping on feather mat- 
tresses in old-fashioned wooden bedsteads that had been 
removed from jeopardy above ground to comparative 
safety below. Whole caves were furnished, and not badly 
furnished, by this salvage of furniture, much of which 
would have brought fancy prices in any collection of 
antiques. 

Forced to a recognition solely of intrinsic values, our 
men made prompt utilisation of much of the material 
abandoned by the civilian population. Home in the field is 
where a soldier sleeps and after all, why not have it as 
comfortable as his surroundings will afford? Those 



250 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

caves and vegetable cellars, many with walls and vaulted 
ceilings of clean red brick or white blocks of chalk, con- 
stituted excellent shelters from shell splinters and even 
protected the men from direct hits by missiles of small, 
calibre. 

Beyond the villages, our riflemen found protection in 
quickly scraped holes in the ground. There were some 
trenches but they were not contiguous. "No Man's 
Land" was an area of uncertain boundary. Our gunners 
had quarters burrowed into the chalk not far from their 
gun pits. All communication and the bringing up of 
shells and food were conducted under cover of darkness. 
Under such conditions, we lived and waited for the order 
to go forward. 

Our sector in that battle of the Somme was so situ- 
ated that the opposing lines ran north and south. The 
enemy was between us and the rising sun. Behind our 
rear echelons was the main road between Amiens and 
Beauvais. Amiens, the objective of the German drive, 
was thirty-five kilometres away on our left, Beauvais 
was the same distance on our right and two hours by 
train from Paris. 

We were eager for the fight. The graves of our dead ; 
dotted new fields in France. We were holding with the • 
French on the Picardy line. We were between the Ger- : 
mans and the sea. We were before Cantigny. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 251 

CHAPTER XHI 

THE RUSH OF THE RAIDERS "ZERO AT 2 A. M." 

While the First U. S. Division was executing in 
Picardy a small, planned operation which resulted in the 
capture of the German fortified positions in the town of 
Cantigny, other American divisions at other parts along 
the line were indulging in that most common of frontal 
di'>^ersions — the raid. 

I was a party to one of these affairs on the Toul front. 
The 26th Division, composed of National Guard troops 
from New England, made the raid. On Memorial Day, 
I had seen those men of the Yankee Division decorating 
the graves of their dead in a little cemetery back of the 
line. By the dawning light of the next morning, I saw 
them come trooping back across No Man's Land after 
successfully decorating the enemy positions with Ger- 
man graves. 

It was evening when we dismissed our motor in the 
ruined village of Hamondville and came into first contact 
with the American soldiers that had been selected for the 
raid. Their engineers were at work in the street connect- 
ing sections of long dynamite-loaded pipes which were 
to be used to blast an ingress through the enemy's wire. 
In interested circles about them were men who were to 
make the dash through the break even before the smoke 
cleared and the debris ceased falling. They were to be 
distinguished from the village garrison by the fact that 
the helmets worn by the raiders were covered with bur- 
lap and some of them had their faces blackened. 

In the failing evening light, we walked on through 



252 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

several heaps of stone and rafters that had once been vil- 
lages, and were stopped by a military policeman who in- 
quired in broad Irish brogue for our passes. These meet- 
ing with his satisfaction, he advised us to avoid the road 
ahead with its dangerous twist, known as ''Dead Man's 
Curve," for the reason that the enemy was at that min- 
ute placing his evening contribution of shells in that vi- 
cinity. Acting on the policeman's suggestion, we took a 
short cut across fields rich with shell holes. Old craters 
were grown over with the grass and mustard flowers with 
which this country abounds at this time of year. Newer 
punctures showed as wounds in the yellow soil and con- 
tained pools of evil-smelling water, green with scum. 

Under the protection of a ridge, which at least screened 
us from direct enemy observation, we advanced toward 
the jagged skyline of a ruined village on the crest. The 
odour of open graves befouled the sheltered slope, indicat- 
ing that enemy shells had penetrated its small protection 
and disturbed the final dugouts of the fallen. 

Once in the village of Beaumont, we followed the 
winding duckboards and were led by small signs painted 
on wood to the colonel's headquarters. We descended the 
stone steps beneath a rickety looking ruin and entered. 

"Guests for our party,'* was the Colonel's greeting. 
The command post had a long narrow interior which was 
well lighted but poorly ventilated, the walls and floor were 
of wood and a low beamed ceiling was supported by 
timbers. "Well, I think it will be a good show." 

"We are sending over a little party of new boys just 
for practice and a 'look-see* in Hunland. We have t^^^o 
companies in this regiment which feel they've sorter been 
left out on most of the fun to date, so this afi'^air has 
been arranged for them. We put the plans together last 
week and pushed the boys through three days of train- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 253 

ing for it back of the lines. TheyVe fit as fiddlers to- 
night and it looks like there'll be no interruption to their 
pleasure. 

"No one man in the world, be he correspondent or 
soldier, could see every angle of even so small a thing 
as a little raid like this," the Colonel explained. "What 
you can't see you have got to imagine. I'm suggesting 
that you stay right in here for the show. That tele- 
phone on my adjutant's desk is the web centre of all 
things occurring in this sector to-night and the closer 
you are to it, the more you can see and learn. Lieutenant 
Warren will take you up the road first and give you a 
look out of the observatory, so you'll know in what part 
of Germany our tourists are going to explore." 

Darkness had fallen when we emerged, but there were 
sufficient stars out to show up the outline of the gaping 
walls on either side of our way. We passed a number of 
sentries and entered a black hole in the wall of a ruin. 
After stumbling over the uneven floor in a darkened pas- 
sage for some minutes, we entered a small room where 
several officers were gathered around a table on which 
two burning candles were stuck in bottles. Our guide, 
stepping to one end of the room, pulled aside a blanket 
curtain and passed through a narrow doorway. We fol- 
lowed. 

Up a narrow, steep, wooden stairway between two 
walls of solid masonry, not over two feet apart, we 
passed, and arrived on a none too stable wooded run- 
way with a guide rail on either side. Looking up through 
the ragged remains of the wooden roof frame, now al- 
most nude of tiles, we could see the starry sky. Pro- 
ceeding along the runway, we arrived, somewhere in that 
cluster of ruins, in a darkened chamber whose interior 



254 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

blackness was relieved by a lighter slit, an opening fac- 
ing the enemy. 

Against the starry skyline, we could see the black out- 
line of a flat tableland in the left distance which we knew 
to be that part of the heights of Meuse for whose com- 
manding ridge there have been so many violent con- 
tests between the close-locked lines in the forest of 
Apremont. More to the centre of the picture, stood 
Mont Sec, detached from the range and pushing its sum- 
mit up through the lowland mist like the dorsal fin of 
a porpoise in a calm sea. On the right the lowland ex- 
tended to indistinct distances, where it blended with the 
horizon. 

In all that expanse of quiet night, there was not a 
single flicker of light, and at that time not a sound to 
indicate that unmentionable numbers of our men were 
facing one another in parallel ditches across the silent 
moor. 

"See that clump of trees way out there?" said the 
lieutenant, directing our vision with his arm. *'Now 
then, hold your hand at arm's length in front of you, 
straight along a line from your eyes along the left edge 
of your hand to that clump of trees. Now then, look 
right along the right edge of your hand and you will be 
looking at Richecourt. The Boche hold it. We go in on 
the right of that to-night." 

We looked as per instructions and saw nothing. As 
far as we were concerned Richecourt was a daylight 
view, but these owls of the lookout knew its location as 
well as they knew the streets of their native towns back 
in New England. We returned to the colonel's command 
post, where cots were provided, and we turned in for a 
few hours' sleep on the promise of being called in time. 

It was 2 A. M. when we were summoned to com- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT " 255 

mand post for the colonel's explanation of the night's 
plans. The regimental commander, smoking a long pipe 
with a curved stem, sat in front of a map on which he 
conducted the exposition. 

*'Here," he said, placing his finger on a section of 
the line marking the American trenches, "is the point of 
departure. That's the jumping off place. These X: 
marks running between the lines is the enemy wire, and 
here, and here, and here are where we blow it up. We 
reach the German trenches at these points and clean up. 
Then the men follow the enemy communicating trenches, 
penetrate three hundred metres to the east edge of Riche- 
court, and return. 

"Zero hour is 2 :^o. It's now 2 :io. Our raiders have 
left their trenches already. They are out in No Man's 
Land now. The engineers are with them carrying ex- 
plosives for the wire. There are stretcher bearers in the 
party to bring back our wounded and also signal men right 
behind them with wire and one telephone. The reports 
from that wire are relayed here and we will also be kept 
informed by runners. The whole party has thirty min- 
utes in which to crawl forward and place explosives un- 
der the wire. They will have things in readiness by 
2 130 and then the show begins." 

Five minutes before the hour, I stepped out of the 
dugout and looked at the silent sky toward the front. 
Not even a star shell disturbed the blue black starlight. 
The guns were quiet. Five minutes more and all this 
was to change into an inferno of sound and light, flash 
and crash. There is always that minute of uncertainty 
before the raiding hour when the tensity of the situation 
becomes almost painful. Has the enemy happened to 
become aware of the plans? Have our men been de- 
prived of the needed element of surprise? But for the 



256 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

thousands of metres behind us, we know that in black 
battery pits anxious crews are standing beside their 
loaded pieces waiting to greet the tick of 2 130 with the 
jerk of the lanyard. 

Suddenly the earth trembles. Through the dugout 
window facing back from the lines, I see the night sky 
burst livid with light. A second later and the crash 
reaches our ears. It is deafening. Now we hear the 
whine of shells as they burn the air overhead. The tele- 
phone bell rings. 

"Yes, this is Boston," the Adjutant speaks into the re- 
ceiver. We listen breathlessly. Has something gone 
wrong at the last minute? 

"Right, I have it," said the Adjutant, hanging up the 
receiver and turning to the Colonel; "X-4 reports bar- 
rage dropped on schedule." 

"Good," said the Colonel. "Gentlemen, here's what's 
happening. Our shells are this minute falling all along 
the German front line, in front of the part selected for 
the raid and on both flanks. Now then, this section 
of the enemy's position is confined in a box barrage which 
is pounding in his front and is placing a curtain of fire 
on his left and his right and another in his rear. Any 
German within the confines of that box trying to get out 
will have a damn hard time and so will any who try to 
come through it to help him." 

"Boston talking," the Adjutant is making answer over 
the telephone. He repeats the message. ^'233, all the 
wire blown up, right." 

"Fine," says the Colonel. "Now they are advancing 
and right in front of them is another rolling barrage of 
shells which is creeping forward on the German lines at 
the same pace our men are walking. They are walking 
in extended order behind it. At the same time our ar- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 257 

tillery has taken care of the enemy's guns by this time 
so that no German barrage will be able to come down on 
our raiders. Our guns for the last three minutes have 
been dumping gas and high explosives on every battery 
position behind the German lines. That's called 'Neu- 
tralisation.' " 

"Boston talking." The room grows quiet again as the 
Adjutant takes the message. 

^'2 136. Y-i reports O. K." 

'^Everything fine and dandy," the Colonel observes, 
smiling. 

"Boston talking." There is a pause. 

"2 :39. G-7 reports sending up three red rockets east 
of A- 1 9. The operator thinks it's a signal for outposts 
to withdraw and also for counter barrage." 

"Too late," snaps the Colonel. "There's a reception 
committee in Hades waiting for 'em right now." 

At 2 :40 the dugout door opens and in walks Doc Com- 
fort from the Red Cross First Aid Station across the 
road. 

"Certainly is a pretty sight. Colonel. Fritzies' front 
door is Ht up like a cathedral at high mass." 

At 2:41. "A very good beginning," remarks a short, 
fat French Major who sits beside the Colonel. He rep- 
resents the French army corps. 

2:43. "Boston talking, — Lieutenant Keman re- 
ports everything quiet in his sector." 

2:45. "Boston talking," the Adjutant turns to the 
Colonel and repeats, "Pittsburgh wants to know if 
there's much coming in here." 

"Tell them nothing to amount to anything," replies the 
Colonel and the Adjutant repeats the message over the 
wire. As he finished, one German shell did land so 
close to the dugout that the door blew open. The of- 



258 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

ficer stepped to the opening and called out into the dark- 
ness. 

"Gas guard. Smell anything?" 

"Nothing, sir. Think they are only high explosives." 

2.47. "Boston talking — enemy sent up one red, one 
green rocket and then three green rockets from B-14," 
the Adjutant repeats. 

"Where is that report from?" asks the Colonel. 

"The operator at Jamestown, sir," replies the Adjutant. 

"Be ready for some gas, gentlemen," says the Colonel. 
"I think that's Fritzie's order for the stink. Orderly, 
put down gas covers on the doors and windows." 

I watched the man unroll the chemically dampened 
blankets over the doors and windows. 

2 149. "Boston talking — 23 calls for barrage." 

The Colonel and Major turn immediately to the wall 
map, placing a finger on 23 position. 

"Hum," says the Colonel. "Counter attack, hey? Well, 
the barrage will take care of them, but get me Watson 
on the line." 

"Connect me with Nantucket," the Adjutant asks the 
operator. "Hello, Watson, just a minute," turning to 
Colonel, "here's Watson, sir." 

"Hello, Watson," the Colonel says, taking the re- 
ceiver. "This is Yellow Jacket. Watch out for counter 
attack against 23. Place your men in readiness and be 
prepared to support Michel on your right. That's all," 
returning 'phone to the Adjutant, "Get me Mr. Lake." 

While the Adjutant made the connection, the Colonel 
explained quickly the planned flanking movement on the 
map. "If they come over there," he said to the French 
Major, "not a God-damn one of them will ever get back 
alive." 

The French Major made a note in his report book. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 259 

"Hello, Lake," the Colonel says, taking the *phone. 
"This is Yellow Jacket. Keep your runners in close 
touch with Michel and Watson. Call me if anything 
happens. That's all." 

3 :oo. "Boston talking — G-2 reports all O.K. Still 
waiting for the message from Worth." 

3.02. "Storming party reports unhindered progress. 
No enemy encountered yet." 

This was the first message back from the raiders. It 
had been sent over the wire and the instruments they 
carried with them and then relayed to the Colonel's com- 
mand post. 

''Magnifique/' says the French Major. 

3 :04. "Boston talking. X-io reports gas in Bois des 
Seicheprey." 

3 .-05. "Boston talking. Hello, yes, nothing coming 
in here to amount to anything. Just had a gas warning 
but none arrived yet." 

3 :oy. "Boston talking, Yes, all right" (turning 

to Colonel), "operator just received message from storm- 
ing party 'so far so good.' " 

"Not so bad for thirty-seven minutes after opening 
of the operation," remarks the Colonel. 

"What is 'so far so good'?" inquires the French 
Major, whose knowledge of English did not extend to 
idioms. Some one explained. 

3 109. "Boston talking — Watson reports all quiet 
around 23 now." 

"Guess that barrage changed their minds," remarks 
the Colonel. 

With gas mask at alert, I walked out for a breath of 
fresh air. The atmosphere in a crowded dugout is sti- 
fling. From guns still roaring in the rear and from in 
front came the trampling sound of shells arriving on 



26o "AND THEY THOUGHT 

German positions. The first hints of dawn were in the 
sky. I returned in time to note the hour and hear : 

3:18. "Boston talking — 0-P reports enemy drop- 
ping Hne of shells from B-4 to B-8." 

^Trying tc get the boys coming back, hey?" remarks 
the Colonel. *'A fat chance. They're not coming back 
that way." 

3:21. "Boston talking — 23 reports th?t the barrage 
called for in their sector was because the en^my had ad- 
vanced within two hundred yards of his first position. 
Evidently they wanted to start something, but the bar- 
rage nipped them and they fell back fast." 

"Perfect," says the French Major. 

3 125. "Boston talking — two green and two red rockett- 
were sent up by the enemy from behind Richecourt." 

"Hell with 'e n, now," the Colonel remarks. 

3 :28. "Boston talking— all O. K. in Z-2. Still wait- 
ing to hear from Michel." 

"I rather wish they had developed their counter at- 
tack," says the Colonel. "I have a reserve that would 
certainly give them an awful wallop." 

3 130. "Boston talking — more gas in Bois des Seiche- 
prey." 

3 133. "Boston talking — white stars reported from 
Richecourt." 

"They must be on their way back by this time," says 
the Colonel, looking at his watch. 

3 137. "Boston talking, — enemy now shelling on the 
north edge of the town. A little gas." 

3 :40. "Boston talking — X-i reports some enemy long 
range retaliation on our right. 

"They'd better come back the other way," says the 
Colonel. 



WE WQULDNT FIGHT" 261 

"That was the intention, sir," the lieutenant reported 
from across the room. 

3 142. "Boston talking — signalman with the party re- 
ports everything O. K." 

"We don't know yet whether they have had any losses 
or got any prisoners," the Colonel remarks. "But the 
mechanism seems to have functioned just as well as it 
did in the last raid. We didn't get a prisoner that time, 
but I sorter feel that the boys will bring back a couple 
with them to-night." 

3 49. "Boston talking— G-9 reports some of the raid- 
ing party has returned and passed that point." 

"Came back pretty quick, don't you think so, Major?" 
said the Colonel with some pride. "Must have returned 
over the top." 

It is 3 :55 when we hear fast footsteps on the stone 
stairs leading down to the dugout entrance. There is a 
sharp rap on the door followed by the Colonel's com- 
mand, "Come in." 

A medium height private of stocky build, with shoul- 
ders heaving from laboured breathing and face wet with 
sweat, enters. He removes his helmet, revealing disor- 
dered blonde hair. He faces the Colonel and salutes. 

"Sir, Sergeant Ransom reports with message from 
Liaison officer. All groups reached the objectives. No 
enemy encountered on the right, but a party on the left is 
believed to be returning with prisoners. We blew up 
their dugouts and left their front line in flames." 

"Good work, boy," says the Colonel, rising and shaking 
the runner's hand. "You got here damn quick. Did 
you come by the Lincoln trench?" 

"No, sir, I came over the top from the battalion post. 
Would have been here quicker, but two of us had to carry 



262 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

back one boy to that point before I could get relieved." 

"Wounded?" 

"No, sir,— dead." 

"Who was it?" asks the young lieutenant. 

"Private Kater, sir, my squad mate." 

As the sergeant raised his hand in parting salute, all 
of us saw suspended from his right wrist a most formi- 
dable weapon, apparently of his own construction. It was 
a pick handle with a heavy iron knob on one end and 
the same end cushioned with a mass of barbed wire rolled 
up like a ball of yarn. He smiled as he noticed our gaze. 

"It's the persuader, sir," he said. "We all carried 
them." 

He had hardly quitted the door when another heavily 
breathing figure with shirt half torn off by barbed wire 
appeared. 

"K Company got there, sir ; beg pardon, sir. I mean 
sir, Sergeant Wiltur reports, sir, with message from Liai- 
son officer. All groups reached the objectives. They left 
their dugouts blazing and brought back one machine gun 
and three prisoners." 

"Very good. Sergeant," said the Colonel. "Orderly, 
get some coffee for these runners." 

"I'd like to see the doctor first, sir," said the runner 
with the torn shirt. "Got my hand and arm cut in the 
wire." 

"Very well," said the Colonel, turning to the rest of 
the party, "I knew my boys would bring back bacon." 

More footsteps on the entrance stairway and two men 
entered carrying something between them. Sweat had 
streaked through the charcoal coating on their faces leav- 
ing striped zebra-like countenances. 

"Lieutenant Burlon's compliments, sir," said the first 
man. "Here's one of their machine guns." 



WE WOULDN T FIGHT" 263 

"Who got it?" inquired the Colonel. 

''Me and him, sir." 

''How did you get it?" 

"We just rolled 'em off it and took it." 

"Rolled who off of it?" 

"Two Germans, sir." 

"What were they doing all that time?" 

"Why, sir, they weren't doing anything. They were 
dead." 

"Oh, very well, then," said the Colonel. "How did 
you happen to find the machine gun?'* 

"We knew where it was before we went over, sir," said 
the man simply. "We were assigned to get it and bring 
it back. We expected we'd have to fight for it, but I 
guess our barrage laid out the crew. Anyhow we rushed 
to the position and found them dead." 

"All right," said the Colonel, "return to your platoon. 
Leave the gun here. It will be returned to you later and 
will be your property." 

I went out with the machine gun captors and walked 
with them to the road. There was the hum of motors 
high overhead and we knew that American planes were 
above, going forward to observe and photograph Ger- 
man positions before the effects of our bombardments' 
could be repaired. A line of flame and smoke pouring up 
from the enemy's front line showed where their dugouts 
and shelters were still burning. 

Daylight was pouring down on a ruined village street, 
up which marched the returning raiders without thought 
of order. They were a happy, gleeful party, with hel- 
mets tipped back from their young faces wet and dirty, 
with rifles swung over their shoulders and the persuaders 
dangling from their wrists. Most of them were up to 
their knees and their wrap puttees were mostly in tat- 



264 "AND THEY THOUGHT 



ters from the contact with the entanglements through 
which they had penetrated. 

As they approached, I saw the cause for some of the 
jocularity. It was a chubby, little, boyish figure, who 
sat perched up on the right shoulder of a tall, husky Irish 
sergeant. The figure steadied itself by grasping the 
sergeant's helmet with his left hand. The sergeant 
steadied him by holding one right arm around his legs. 

But there was no smile on the face of the thus trans- 
formed object. His chubby countenance was one of 
easily understood concern. He was not a day over six- 
teen years and this was quite some experience for him. 
He was one of the German prisoners and these happy 
youngsters from across the seas were bringing him in 
almost with as much importance as though he had been 
a football hero. He was unhurt and it was unnecessary 
to carry him, but this tribute was voluntarily added, not 
only as an indication of extreme interest, but to reassure 
the juvenile captive of the kindly intentions of his cap- 
tors. 

"Jiggers, here's the Colonel's dugout," one voice 
shouted. "Put him down to walk, now." 

The big sergeant acted on the suggestion and the lit- 
tle Fritz was lowered to the ground. He immediately 
caught step with the big sergeant and took up the lat- 
t'er's long stride with his short legs and feet encased in 
clumsy German boots. His soiled uniform had been the 
German field grey green. His helmet was gone but he 
wore well back on his head the flat round cloth cap. 
With his fat cheeks he looked like a typical baker's boy, 
and one almost expected to see him carrying a tray of 
rolls on his head. 

"For the luva Mike, Tim," shouted an ambulance man, 
"do you call that a prisoner?" 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 265 

"Sure he does look like a half portion," replied 
Sergeant Tim with a smile. "We got two hundred 
francs for a whole one. I don't know what we can cash 
this one in for." 

"He ought to be worth more," some one said; "that 
barrage cost a million dollars. He's the million dollar 
baby of the raid." 

"Sergeant, Fm not kidding," came one serious voice. 
"Why turn him in as a prisoner? I like the kid's looks. 
Why can't we keep him for the company mascot?" 

The discussion ended when the Sergeant and his small 
charge disappeared in the Colonel's quarters for the in- 
evitable questioning that all prisoners must go through. 
Several wounded were lying on the stretchers in front of 
the first aid dugout waiting for returning ambulances 
and passing the time meanwhile by smoking cigarettes 
and explaining how close each of them had been to the 
shell that exploded and "got 'em." 

But little of the talk was devoted to themselves. They 
were all praise for the little chaplain from Nevv^ Eng- 
land who, without arms, went over the top with "his 
boys" and came back with them. It was their opinion 
that their regiment had some sky pilot. And it was 
mine, also. 



266 "AND THEY THOUGHT 



CHAPTER XIV 

ON LEAVE IN PARIS 

"So this — is Paris/' — this obsen^ation spoken in mock 
seriousness, in a George Cohan nasal drawl and accom- 
panied by a stiff and stagy wave of the arm, was the cus- 
tomary facetious pass-word with which American sol- 
diers on leave or on mission announced their presence 
in the capital of France. 

Paris, the beautiful — Paris, the gay — Paris, the his- 
torical — Paris, the artistic — Paris, the only Paris, opened 
her arms to the American soldier and proceeded toward 
his enlightenment and entertainment on the sole policy 
that nothing was too good for him. 

I saw the first American soldiers under arms reach 
Paris. It was early in the morning of July 3rd, 1917, 
when this first American troop train pulled into the Gare 
d'Austerlitz. It was early in the morning, yet Paris was 
there to give them a welcome. The streets outside the 
station were jammed with crowds. They had seen Persh- 
ing ; they had seen our staff officers and headquarters de- 
tails, but now they wanted to see the t3^pe of our actual 
fighting men — they wanted to see the American poilus 
— the men who were to carry the Stars and Stripes over 
the top. 

The men left the cars and lined up in the station yard. 
It had been a long, fifteen hour night ride and the 
cramped quarters of the troop train had permitted but 
little sleep. There was no opportunity for them to break- 
fast or wash before they were put on exhibition. 
Naturally, they were somewhat nervous. ;,;; 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 267 

The standing line was ordered to produce its mess cups 
and hold them forward. Down the line came a bevy of 
pretty French girls, wearing the uniform of Red Cross 
nurses. They carried canisters of black coffee and baskets 
of cigarettes. They ladled out steaming cupfuls of the 
black liquid to the men. The incident gave our men their 
first surprise. 

Rum or alcohol has never been a part of the United 
States army ration. In the memory of the oldest old- 
timers in the ranks of our old regular army, "joy 
water" had never been issued. On the other hand, its 
use had always been strictly forbidden in the company 
messes. Our men never expected it. Thus it was that, 
with no other idea occurring to them, they extended their 
mess cups to be filled with what they thought was simply 
strong hot coffee. Not one of them had the slightest 
suspicion that the French cooks who had prepared that 
coffee for their new American brothers in arms, had put 
a stick in it — had added just that portion of cognac 
which they had considered necessary to open a man's 
eyes and make him pick up his heels after a long night 
in a troop train. 

I watched one old-timer in the ranks as he lifted the 
tin cup to his lips and took the initial gulp. Then he 
iowered the cup. Across his face there dawned first an 
expression of curious suspicion, then a look of satisfied 
recognition, and then a smile of pleased surprise, which 
he followed with an audible smacking of the lips. He 
finished the cup and allowed quite casually that he could 
stand another. 

"So this is Paris," — well, it wasn't half bad to start 
with. With that '"coffee" under their belts, the men re- 
sponded snappily to the march order, and in column of 
four, they swung into line and moved out of the station 



268 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

yard, at the heels of their own band, which played a 
stirring marching air. 

Paris claimed them for her own. All that the war had 
left of Paris' gay life, all the lights that still burned, all 
the music that still played, all the pretty smiles that had 
never been reduced in their quality or quantity, all that 
Paris had to make one care- free and glad to be alive — 
all belonged that day to that pioneer band of American 
infantrymen. 

The women kissed them on the street. Grey-headed 
men removed their hats to them and shook their hands 
and street boys followed in groups at their heels mak- 
ing the air ring with shrill **Vive's." There were not 
many of them, only three companies. The men looked 
trim and clean-cut. They were tall and husky-looking 
and the snap with which they walked was good to the 
eyes of old Paris that loves verve. 

With a thirty-two-inch stride that made their follow- 
ing admirers stretch their legs, the boys in khaki marched 
from the Austerlitz station to the Neuilly barracks over 
a mile away, where they went into quarters. Paris was 
in gala attire. In preparation for the celebration of the 
following day, the shop windows and building fronts 
were decked with American flags. 

Along the line of march, traffic piled up at the street 
intersections and the gendarmes were unable to prevent 
the crowds from overflowing the sidewalks and pressing 
out into the streets where they could smile their greetings 
and throw flowers at closer range. A sergeant flanking 
a column stopped involuntarily when a woman on the 
curb reached out, grabbed his free hand, and kissed it. A 
snicker ran through the platoon as the sergeant, with face 
red beneath the tan. withdrew his hand and recaught his 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 269 

step. He gave the snickering squads a stern, "Eyes 
front!'* and tried to look at ease. 

How the bands played that day! How the crowds 
cheered! How the flags and handkerchiefs and hats 
waved in the air, and how thousands of throats volleyed 
the ''Vive's !" This was the reception of our first fight- 
ing men. But on the following day they received even a 
greater demonstration, when they marched through the 
streets of the city on parade, and participated in the first 
Parisian celebration of American Independence Day. 

Parisians said that never before had Paris shown so 
many flags, not even during the days three years before, 
when the sons of France had marched away to keep the 
Germans out of Paris. It seemed that the customary 
clusters of Allied flags had been almost entirely re- 
placed for the day by groups composed solely of the 
French tricolour and the Stars and Stripes. Taxis and 
fiacres flew flags and bunting from all attachable places. 
Flag venders did wholesale business on the crowded 
streets. Street singers sang patriotic parodies, eulogis- 
ing Uncle Sam and his nephews, and garnered harvests 
of sous for their efforts. 

The three companies of our regulars marched with a 
regiment of French colonials, all veterans of the war 
and many of them incapacitated for front service through 
wounds and age. French soldiers on leave from the 
trenches and still bearing the mud stains of the battle 
front life, cheered from the sidewalks. Bevies of mid" 
dinettes waved their aprons from the windows of mik 
linery shops. Some of them shouted, "Vive les Teddies!" 
America — the great, good America — the sister republic 
from across the seas was spoken of and shouted all day 
long. Paris capitulated unconditionally to three com- 
panies of American infantry. 



270 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

From that day on, every American soldier visiting 
Paris has been made to feel himself at home. And the 
unrestricted hospitality did not seem to be the result of 
an initial wave of enthusiasm. It was continuous. For 
months afterward, any one wearing an American uni- 
form along the boulevards could hear behind him dulcet 
whispers that carried the words tres gentil. 

At first, our enlisted men on leave in Paris or detailed 
for work in the city, were quartered in the old Pipincerie 
Barracks, where other soldiers from all of the Allied 
armies in the world were quartered. Our men mingled 
with British Tommies, swarthy Italians and Portuguese, 
tall blond Russians, French poilus, Canadians, Australians 
and New Zealanders. At considerable expense to these 
comrades in arms, our men instructed them in the ail- 
American art of plain and fancy dice rolling. 

Later when our numbers in Paris increased, other ar- 
rangements for housing were made. The American 
policing of Paris, under the direction of the Expedi- 
tionary Provost General, Brigadier General Hillaire, was 
turned over to the Marines. Whether it was that our 
men conducted themselves in Paris with the orderliness 
of a guest at the home of his host, or whether it was 
that the Marines with their remarkable discipline sup- 
pressed from all view any too hearty outbursts of Ameri- 
can exuberance, it must be said that the appearance and 
the bearing of American soldiers in Paris were always 
above reproach. 

I have never heard of one being seen intoxicated in 
Paris, in spite of the fact that more opportunities pre- 
sented themselves for drinking than had ever before been 
presented to an American army. The privilege of sitting 
at a table in front of a sidewalk cafe on a busy boulevard 
and drinking a small glass of beer unmolested, was one 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 271 

that our men did not take advantage of. It was against 
the law to serve any of the stronger liqueurs to men in 
uniform, but beer and light wines were obtainable all the 
time. All cafes closed at 9 :^o. In spite of the ever pres- 
ent opportunity to obtain beverages of the above char- 
acter, there was many and many an American soldier who 
tramped the boulevards and canvassed the cafes, drug 
stores and delicatessen shops in search of a much-de- 
sired inexistent, ice cream soda. 

Many of our men spent their days most seriously and 
most studiously, learning the mysteries of transportation 
on the busses and the Paris underground system, while 
they pored over their guide books and digested pages of 
information concerning the points of interest that Paris 
had to offer. Holidays found them shuffling through the 
tiled corridors of the Invalides or looking down into the 
deep crypt at the granite tomb of the great Napoleon. In 
the galleries of the Louvre, the gardens of the Tuilleries, 
or at the Luxembourg, the American uniform was ever 
present. At least one day out of every ten day leave was 
spent in the palace and the grounds at Versailles. 

The theatres of Paris offered a continual change of 
amusement. One of the most popular among these was 
the Folies Bergeres. Some of our men didn't realise until 
after they entered the place that it was a French theatre. 
Due to the French pronunciation of the name, some of 
the American soldiers got the idea that it was a saloon 
run by an Irishman by the name of Foley. "Bergere" to 
some was unpronounceable, so the Folies Bergeres was 
most popularly known in our ranks as "Foley's place." 

Another popular amusement place was the Casino de 
Paris, where an echo from America was supplied by an 
American negro jazz band, which dispensed its question- 
able music in the promenoir during the intermission. 



272 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

There were five negroes in the orchestra and each one 
of them seemed to have an ardent disHke for the remain- 
ing four. Individually they manifested their mutual con- 
tempt by turning their backs on one another while they 
played. Strange as it may seem, a most fascinating type 
of harmony resulted, producing much swaying of shoul- 
ders, nodding of heads and snapping of fingers among 
the American soldiers in the crowd. French men and 
women, with their old world musical taste, would con- 
sider the musical gymnastics of the demented drummer 
in the orchestra, then survey the swaying Americans and 
come to the conclusion that the world had gone plumb 
to hell. 

All types of American soldiers made Paris their mecca 
as soon as the desired permissions had been granted. One 
day I sat opposite a remarkable type whom I found din- 
ing in a small restaurant. I noticed the absence of either 
beer or wine with his meal, and he frankly explained 
that he had never tasted either in his life. He thanked 
me, but refused to accept a cigarette I offered, saying 
without aside that he had yet his first one to smoke. 
When I heard him tell Madame that he did not care for 
coffee, I asked him why, and he told me that his mother 
had always told him it was injurious and he had never 
tasted it. 

I became more interested in this ideal, young American 
soldier and questioned him about his life. I found that 
he and his father had worked in the copper mines in 
Michigan. They were both strong advocates of union 
labour and had participated vigorously in the bloody 
Michigan strikes. 

"Father and I fought that strike clear through," he 
said. *'Our union demands were just. Here in this war 
I am fighting just the same way as we fought against 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 273 



the mine operators in Michigan. I figure it out that 
Germany represents low pay, long hours and ^miserable 
working conditions for the world. I think the Kaiser is 
the world's greatest scab. I am over here to help get 
him." 

One day in the Chatham Hotel, in Paris, I was dining 
with an American Brigadier General, when an American 
soldier of the ranks approached the table. At a re- 
spectful distance of five feet, the soldier halted, clicked 
his heels and saluted the General. He said, "Sir, the 
orderly desires permission to take the General's car to 
headquarters and deliver the packages." 

"All right. Smith," replied the General, looking at his 
watch. "Find out if my other uniform is back yet and 
then get back here yourself with the car in half an hour." 

"Thank you, sir," replied the man as he saluted, exe- 
cuted a snappy right about face and strode out of the 
dining-room. 

"Strange thing about that chauffeur of mine," said 
the General to me. "I had a lot of extra work yesterday 
on his account. I had to make out his income tax re- 
turns. He and his dad own almost all the oil in Okla- 
homa. When he paid his income tax. Uncle Sam got a 
little over a hundred thousand dollars. He went in the 
army In the ranks. He is only an enlisted private now, 
but he's a good one." 

Walking out of the Gare du Nord one day, I saw a man 
in an American uniform and a French Gendarme vainly 
trying to talk with each other. The Frenchman was 
waving bis arms and pointing in various directions and 
the American appeared to be trying to ask questions. 
With the purpose of offering my limited knowledge of 



274 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

French to straighten out the difficulty, I approached the 
pair and asked the American soldier what he wanted. He 
told me but I don't know what it was to this day. He 
spoke only Polish. 

It was not alone amidst the gaiety of Paris that our 
soldiers spread the fame of America. In the peaceful 
countrysides far behind the flaming fronts, the Yankee 
fighting men won their way into the hearts of the French 
people. Let me tell you the story of a Christmas celebra- 
tion in a little French village in the Vosges. 

Before dawn there were sounds of movement in the 
murky half-light of the village street. A long line of 
soldiers wound their way past flaming stoves of the 
mess shacks, where the steaming coffee took the chill out 
of the cold morning stomachs. 

Later the sun broke bright and clear. It glistened on 
the snow-clad furrows of the rolling hills, in which, for 
centuries, the village of Saint Thiebault has drowsed 
more or less happily beside its ancient canal and in the 
shadow of the steeple of the church of the good Saint 
Thiebault. 

Now a thousand men or more, brown-clad and metal- 
helmeted, know the huts and stables of Saint Thiebault 
as their billets, and the seventy little boys and girls of the 
parish know those same thousand men as their new 
big brothers^ — les bons Americains. 

The real daddies and big brothers and uncles of those 
seventy youngsters have been away from Saint Thie- 
bault for a long time now — yes, this is the fourth Christ- 
mas that the urgent business in northern France has kept 
them from home. They may never return but that is un- 
known to the seventy young hopefuls. 

There was great activity in the colonel's quarters dur- 




aiARIKES MARCHING DOWN THE AVENUE PRESIDENT WILSON 
ON THE FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS 




BRIDGE CROSSING MARNE RIVER IN CHATEAU-THIERRY DESTROYED BY 
GERMANS IN THEIR RETREAT FROM TOWN 



\ 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 275 

ing the morning, and it is said that a sleuthing seventy 
were intent on unveiling the mystery of these unusual 
American preparations. They stooped to get a peep 
through the windows of the room, and Private Larson, 
walking his post in front of the sacred precincts, had to 
shoo them away frequently with threatening gestures and 
Swedish-American-French commands, such as "Allay 
veet — Allay veet fell outer here." 

An energetic bawling from the headquarters cook 
shack indicated that one juvenile investigator had come 
to grief. Howls emanated from little Paul Laurent, who 
could be seen stumbling across the road, one blue, cold 
hand poking the tears out of his eyes and the other hold- 
ing the seat of his breeches. 

Tony Moreno, the company cook, stood in front of the 
cook shack shaking a soup ladle after the departing Paul 
and shouting imprecations in Italian-American. 

"Tam leetle fool !" shouted Tony as he returned to the 
low camp stove and removed a hot pan, the surface of 
whose bubbling contents bore an unmistakable imprint. 
"Deese keeds make me seek. I catcha heem wit de finger 
in de sugar barrel. I shout at heem. He jumpa back. He 
fall over de stove and sita down in de pan of beans. He 
spoila de mess. He burn heese pants. Tam good !" 

And over there in front of the regimental wagon train 
picket line, a gesticulating trio is engaged in a three 
cornered Christmas discussion. One is M. Lecompte, 
who is the uniformed French interpreter on the Colonel's 
staff, and he is talking to "Big" Moriarity, the teamster, 
the tallest man in the regiment. The third party to the 
triangle is little Pierre Lafite, who clings to M. Le- 
compte' s hand and looks up in awe at the huge Irish 
soldier. 

"He wants to borrow one of these," M. Lecompte says, 



276 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

pointing to the enormous hip boots which Moriarity is 
wearing. 

"He wants to borrow one of me boots?" repeated the 
Irishman. "And for the love of heavin, what would he 
be after doin' wid it? Sure and the top of it is higher 
than the head of him." 

"It is for this purpose," explains the interpreter. 
"The French children do not hang xip their stockings for 
Christmas. Instead they place their wooden shoes on 
the hearth and the presents and sweets are put in them. 
You see, Pierre desires to receive a lot of things." 

"Holy Mother!" replies Moriarity, kicking off one 
boot and hopping on one foot toward the stables. "Take 
it, you scamp, and I hopes you get it filled wid dimonds 
and gold dust. But mind ye, if you get it too near the 
fire and burn the rubber I'll eat you like you was a 
oyster." 

The Irish giant emphasised his threat with a grimace 
of red-whiskered ferocity and concluded by loudly smack- 
ing his lips. Then little Pierre was off to his mother's 
cottage, dragging the seven league boot after him. 

With the afternoon meal, the last of the packages had 
been tied with red cords and labelled, and the interior of 
the Colonel's quarters looked like an express office in the 
rush season. The packages represented the purchases 
made with 1,300 francs which the men of the battaHon 
had contributed for the purpose of having Christmas 
come to Saint Thiebault in good style. 

M. Lecompte has finished sewing the red and white 
covering which is to be worn by "Hindenburg," the most 
docile mule in the wagon train, upon whom has fallen the 
honour of drawing the present loaded sleigh of the 
Christmas saint. 

"Red" Powers, the shortest, fattest and squattiest man 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 277 



in the battalion, is investing himself with baggy, red 
garments, trimmed with white fur and tassels, all made 
out of cloth by hands whose familiarity with the needle 
has been acquired in bayonet practice. Powers has 
donned his white wig and whiskers and his red cap. 
tasseled in white. He is receiving his final instructions 
from the colonel. 

"You may grunt. Powers," the colonel is saying, "but 
don't attempt to talk French with that Chicago accent. 
We don't want to frighten the children. And remember, 
you are not Santa Claus. You are Papa Noel. That's 
what the French children call Santa Claus." 

It is three o'clock, and the regimental band, assembled 
in marching formation in the village street, blares out 
"I Wish I Were in the Land of Cotton," and there is 
an outpouring of children, women and soldiers from 
every door on the street. The colonel and his staff stand 
in front of their quarters opposite the band, and a 
thousand American soldiers, in holiday disregard for 
formation, range along either side of the street. 

The large wooden gate of the stable yard, next to the 
commandant's quarters, swings open; there is a jingle of 
bells, and "Hindenburg," resplendent in his fittings, and 
Papa Noel Powers sitting high on the package-heaped 
sleigh, move out into the street. Their appearance is 
met with a crash of cymbals, the blare of the band's 
loudest brass, and the happy cries of the children and the 
deeper cheers of the men. 

Christmas had come to Saint Thiebault. Up the street 
went the procession, the band in the lead playing a lively 
jingling piece of music well matched to the keenness of 
the air and the willingness of young blood to tingle with 
the slightest inspiration. 

"Hindenburg," with a huge pair of tin spectacles gog- 



278 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

gling his eyes, tossed his head and made the bells ring all 
over his gala caparison. Papa Noel, mounted on the 
pyramid of presents, bowed right and left and waved his 
hands to the children, to the soldiers, to the old men and 
the old women. 

As the youngsters followed in the wake of the sleigh, 
the soldiers picked them up and carried them on their 
shoulders, on "piggy" back, or held them out so they 
could shake hands with Papa Noel and hear that digni- 
tary gurgle his appreciation in wonderful north pole 
language. 

When Papa Noel found out that he could trust the 
flour paste and did not have to hold his whiskers on by 
biting them, he gravely announced, "Wee, wee," to all the 
bright-eyed, red-cheeked salutations directed his way. 

The band halted in front of the ancient church of 
Saint Thiebault, where old Father Gabrielle stood in the 
big doorway, smiling and rubbing his hands. Upon his 
invitation the children entered and were placed in the 
first row of chairs, the mothers, grandmothers, grand- 
fathers, and young women sat in back of them, and fur- 
ther back sat the regimental officers. The soldiers filled 
the rest of the church to the doors. 

The brief ceremony ended with a solemn benediction 
and then the curtains were drawn back from one of the 
arches in front of and to the left of the main altar. 

There stood Saint Thiebault's first Christmas tree, or 
at least the first one in four years. It wa-s lighted with 
candles and was resplendent with decorations that repre- 
sented long hours of work with shears and paste on the 
part of unaccustomed fingers. Suggestions from a thou- 
sand Christmas minds were on that tree, and the result 
showed it. The star of Bethlehem, made of tinsel, 
glistened in the candlelight. 



Vv£ WQULDNT FIGHT" 279 

Not even the inbred decorum of the church was suf- 
ficient to restrain the involuntary expressions of admira- 
tion of the saint by the seventy youngsters. They oh-ed 
and ah-ed and pointed, but they enjoyed it not a whit 
more than did the other children in the church, some of 
whose ages ran to three score and more. 

Papa Noel walked down the centre aisle leading a file 
of soldiers, each of whom carried a heaping armful of 
packages. Young necks craned and eyes bulged as the 
packages were deposited on the tables in front of the 
communion rail. M. Lecompte raised his hands for 
silence and spoke. 

'These Americans," he said, "have come to our 
country to march and to fight side by side with your 
fathers and your big brothers and your uncles and all 
the men folk who have been away from Saint Thiebault 
so long. These Americans want to take their places for 
you to-day. These Americans in doing these things for 
you are thinking of their own little girls and little boys 
away back across the ocean who are missing their fathers 
and big brothers and uncles to-day, just the same as you 
miss yours." 

There were wet eyes among the women and some of 
the older men in khaki closed their eyes and seemed to 
be transporting themselves thousands of miles away to 
other scenes and other faces. But the reverie was only 
for a minute. 

M. Lecompte began calling the names for the distribu- 
tion of gifts and the children of Saint Thiebault began 
their excited progress toward the tables. Here Papa 
Noel delivered the prized packages. 

"For Marie Louise Larue," said M. Lecompte, "a 
hair ribbon of gold and black with a tortoise bandeau." 



28o "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"For Gaston Ponsot, a toy cannon that shoots and six 
German soldiers at least to shoot." 

"For Colette Daville, a warm cape of red cloth with 
a collar of wool." 

"For Alphonse Benois, an aeroplane that flies on a 
string." 

"For Eugenie Fontaine, a doll that speaks." 

"For Emilie Moreau, a pair of shoes with real leather 
soles and tops." 

"For Camille Laurent, red mittens of wool and a sheep- 
skin muff." 

"For Jean Artois, a warship that moves and flies the 
American flag." 

It continued for more than an hour. The promoters 
of the celebration were wise to their work. There was 
more than one present for each child. They did not know 
how many. Time after time, their names were called and 
they clattered forward in their wooden shoes for each 
new surprise. 

The presents ran the range of toys, clothing, games, 
candies and nuts, but the joy was in sitting there and 
waiting for one's name to be called and going forward to 
partake of that most desirable "more." 

Big Moriarity had his hands in the incident that served 
as a climax to the distribution. He had whispered some- 
thing to M. Lecompte and the result was that one little 
duffer, who sat all alone on a big chair, and hugged an 
enormous rubber boot, waited and waited expectantly to 
hear the name "Pierre Lafite" called out. 

All the other names had been called once and not his. 
He waited. All the names had been called twice and still 
not his. He waited through the third and the fourth call- 
ing in vain, and his chin was beginning to tremble 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT ' 281 

suspiciously as the fifth calling proceeded without the 
sound of his name. 

The piles of packages on the tables had been getting 
smaller all the time. Then M. Lecompte pronounced 
the very last name. 

'Tierre Lafite," he called. 

Pierre's heart bounded as he slipped off the chair and 
started up the aisle dragging his big rubber boot. The 
rest of the children had returned to their seats. All the 
elders in the church were watching his progress. 

"For Pierre Lafite," repeated M. Lecompte, holding up 
the enormous boot. "A pair of real leather shoes to fit in 
the foot of the boot.*' He placed them there. 

"And a pair of stilts to fit in the leg of the boot." He 
so placed them. 

"And a set of soldiers, twenty-four in number, with a 
general commanding, to go beside the stilts.'' He poured 
them into the boot. 

"And a pair of gloves and a stocking cap to go on top 
of the soldiers. 

"And a baseball and a bat to go on top of the gloves. 

"And all the chinks to be filled up with nuts and figs, 
and sweets. Voila, Pierre," and with these words, he 
had poured the sweetmeats in overflowing measure into 
the biggest hip boot in the regiment. 

Amid the cheers of the men, led by big Moriarity, 
Pierre started toward his seat, struggling with the seven 
league boot and the wholesale booty, and satisfied with 
the realisation that in one haul he had obtained more 
than his companions in five. 

Company B quartet sang "Down in a Coal Hole," and 
then, as the band struck up outside the church, all moved 
to the street. The sun had gone down, the early winter 
night had set in, and the sky was almost dark. 



282 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

'^Signal for the barrage," came the command in the 
darkness. 

There were four simultaneous hisses of fire and four 
comets of flame sprang up from the ground. They broke 
far overhead in lurid green. 

'^Signal for enemy planes overhead," was the next 
command, and four more rockets mounted and ended 
their flights in balls of luminous red. Other commands, 
other signals, other rockets, other lights and flares and 
pistol star shells, enriched a pyrotechnical display which 
was economically combined with signal practice. 

The red glare illuminated the upturned happy faces of 
American and French together. Our men learned to love 
the French people. The French people learned to love us. 



■II 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 283. 

CHAPTER XV 

'THE BOIS DE BELLEAU 

'^^ chapters the 
aeveiupiiiv^x.c ^- France 

from a mere handful o. r .;.-. .rear -^ 

units capable of independeni . the* front, 

that intense and thorough training liu^ le , 
our oversea forces to play the veteran pai L 
in the great Second Battle of the Marne. 

The battle developed as a third phase of the enemy ^ 
Western Front offensives of the year. The increasing 
strength of the American forces overseas forced Ger- 
many to put forth her utmost efforts in the forlorn hope 
of gaining a decision in the field before the Allied lines 
could have the advantage of America's weight. 

On March 21st, the Germans had launched their first 
powerful offensive on a front of fifty miles from Arras 
to Noyon in Picardy and had advanced their lines from 
St. Quentin to the outskirts of Amiens. 

On April 9th, the German hordes struck again in 
Flanders on a front of twenty miles from Lens north- 
ward to the River Lys and had cut into the Allied front 
as far as Armentieres. 

There followed what was considered an abnormal de- 
lay in the third act of the demonstration. It was known 
that the Germans were engaged in making elaborate ar- 
rangements for this mid-summer push. It was the enemy 
hope in this great offensive to strike a final effective blow 
against the hard-pressed Allied line before America's ris- 
ing power could be thrown into the fight. 



284 "AND THEY THOUGHT ^_^ 

The blow fell on the morning of May 27th. The front 
selected for the assault was twenty-five miles in width, 
extending from the Ailette near Vauxaillon to the Aisne- 
Marne Canal near Brimont. The Prussian Crown Prince 
was the titular chief of the group of arnues used in the 
assault. One of the-e forces was the army of General 
von Boehm, whirh before the attack had numl-ied only 
nine divisions and had ex^ t.ded from the Oise at Noyon 
to east of Craconne. The other army was that of Gen- 
eral Fritz von Biilow, previously composed of eight di- 
visions and supporting a front that extended from 
Craconne across the Rheims front to Suippe, near Au- 
berive. On the day of the attack, these armies had been 
strengthened to twice their normal number of divisions, 
and subsequently captured German plans revealed that 
the enemy expected to use forty-five divisions or prac- 
tically half a million men in the onslaught. 

The battle began at dawn. It was directed against the 
weakly held French positions on the Chemin des Dames. 
It was preceded by a three hour bombardment of ter- 
rific intensity. The French defenders were outnumbered 
four to one. The Germans put down a rolling barrage 
that was two miles deep. It destroyed all wire communi- 
cations and flooded battery emplacements and machine 
gun posts with every brand of poison gas known to Ger- 
man kultur. Dust and artificial smoke clouds separated 
the defenders into small groups and screened the attack- 
ing waves until they had actually penetrated the French 
positions. 

The French fought hard to resist the enemy flood 
across the Chemin des Dames with its ground sacred with 
tragic memories, but a withdrawal was necessary. The 
French command was forced to order a retreat to the 
Aisne. Hard-fighting French divisions and some units 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 285 

of the British Fifth Army, which had been badly hit in 
Picardy in March, made an orderly withdrawal south- 
ward. 

On the second day of the fight the enemy made a 
strong thrust toward Soissons, and after keeping the city 
under continual bombardment, succeeded in overcoming 
all resistance and occupying the city on May 29th. On 
the first day of the attack alone, twelve thousand ex- 
plosive, incendiary and poison gas shells were hurled in 
amongst the hospitals in Soissons. American ambulance 
units did heroic work in the removal of the wounded. 

The Germans forced a crossing on the Aisne. On the 
following day, May 30th, they had crossed the Vesle 
River and had captured Fere-en-Tardenois. On the fol- 
lowing day their victorious hordes had reached the Marne 
and were closing in on Chateau-Thierry. 

Some idea of the terrific strength of the enemy offen- 
sive may be gained from a recapitulation which would 
show that in five days the Germans had pushed through 
five successive lines of Allied defence, and had pene- 
trated more than twenty-five miles. On the first day, 
they had captured the Chemin des Dames, on the second 
day, they had overcome all resistance on the Aisne, on 
the third day, their forces, pushing southward, had 
crossed the Vesle River, on the fourth day, they had 
destroyed the lines of resistance along the Ourcq, on the 
fifth day, they had reached the Marne. 

It was a crisis. The battle front formed a vast triangle 
with the apex pointing southward toward Paris. The 
west side of the triangle extended fifty miles northward 
from the Marne to the Oise near Noyon. The east side 
of the triangle ran north-eastward thirty miles to Rheims. 
The point of this new thrust at Paris rested on the north 
bank of the Marne at Chateau-Thierry. The enemy had 



286 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

advanced to within forty miles of the capital of France; 
the fate of the Allied world hung in the balance. 

Undoubtedly I am prejudiced, but I like to feel that 
I know the real reason why the German hordes stopped 
at Chateau-Thierry on the north bank of the Marne. To 
me that reason will always be this — because on the south 
bank of the Marne stood the Americans. 

On that day and in that event there materialised the 
German fears which had urged them on to such great 
speed and violence. In the eleventh hour, there at the 
peak of the German thrust, there at the climax of Ger- 
many's triumphant advances, there at the point where a 
military decision for the enemy seemed almost within 
grasp, there and then the American soldier stepped into 
the breech to save the democracy of the world. 

The Marne River makes a loop at this place and 
Chateau-Thierry lies on both banks. The Marne there 
is called a river, but it would hardly come up to the 
American understanding of the word. The waterway 
is more like a canal with banks built up with stone blocks. 
There are streets on either bank, and these being the 
principal streets of the town, are bordered with com- 
parativel}^ high buildings. 

While the Germans were on the outskirts of the city, 
American forces had made brilliant counter attacks on 
both sides. To the west of Chateau-Thierry the Ger- 
man advance forces, seeking to penetrate Neuilly Wood, 
had been hurled back by our young troops. To the east 
of Chateau-Thierry the enemy had succeeded in crossing 
the Marne in the vicinity of Jaulgonne. 

This operation was carried out by the German 36th 
Division. On the night of May 30th, at a point where 
the Marne looped northward eight miles to the east of 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 287 

Chateau-Thierry, the enemy succeeded in putting a few 
men across the river. 

Along the south bank of the river at that place, the 
Paris-Chalons ran through a number of deep cuts and one 
tunnel. The enemy took shelter in these natural pro- 
tections. They suffered serious losses from the Allied 
artillery which also destroyed some of their pontoons 
across the river, but in spite of this, the Germans suc- 
ceeded in re-enforcing the units on the south bank to 
the strength of about a battalion. 

Almost at the same time, the French defenders at this 
place received re-enforcements from the Americans. 
Units of the 3rd United States Regular Division and the 
28th U. S. Division, comprised largely of Pennsylvania 
National Guardsmen, were rushed forward from training 
areas, miles back of the line, where they were engaged in 
fitting themselves for line duty. These incompletely 
trained American units abandoned their bayonet-stabbing 
of gunny-sacks and make-believe warfare to rush forward 
into the real thing. 

On June 2nd, these Americans, under command of 
French officers, began the counter attack to sweep the 
Germans back from the south bank. By that time the 
enemy had succeeded in putting twenty-two light bridges 
across the Mame and had established a strong bridge- 
head position with a number of machine guns and a 
strong force of men in the railway station on the south 
bank of the river opposite Jaulgonne. 

This position was attacked frontally by the Americans 
and French. Our novices in battle were guilty of nu- 
merous so-called strategical blunders, but in the main 
purpose of killing the enemy, they proved irresistible. 
The Germans broke and ran. . At the same time, the 
French artillery lowered a terrific barrage on the bridges 



288 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

crossing the river, with the result that many of the flee- 
ing enemy were killed and more drowned. Only thirty 
or forty escaped by swimming. One hundred of them 
threw down their arms and surrendered. The remainder 
of the battalion was wiped out. At the close of the en- 
gagement the Americans and the French were in full 
command of the south bank. 

But it was in Chateau-Thierry itself that the Germans 
made their most determined effort to cross the river and 
get a footing on the south bank, and it was there, again, 
that their efforts were frustrated by our forces. On May 
31st, American machine gun units, then in training sev- 
enty-five kilometres south of the Marne, were hurriedly 
bundled into motor lorries and rushed northward into 
Chateau-Thierry. 

The Germans were advanchig their patrols into the 
north side of the city. They were pouring down the 
streets in large numbers, with the evident purpose of 
crossing the bridges and estivblishing themselves on the 
south bank. 

It was four o^clock in the afternoon of May 31st that 
those American machine gunners got their first glimpse 
of real war. That night while the German artillery raked 
the south bank of the river with high explosive shells, 
those Americans, shouldering their machine guns, 
marched into the city and took up defensive positions on 
the south bank of the river. 

During the night many houses were turned into ruins. 
Shells striking the railroad station had caused it to burn. 
In the red glare our men saw the houses about them col- 
lapse under clouds of dust and debris. Under cover of 
darkness the Germans filtered through the streets on the 
north side of the river. The American machine gunners 
went into position in the windows of houses on the south 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 28g 

bank and in gardens between the houses, and from these 
positions it was possible to command all of the bridge 
approaches and streets leading to the river on the opposite 
side. 

During the night, Lieutenant John T. Bissell, a young 
Pittsburgher but recently graduated from West Point, 
started across one of the bridges and reached the north 
bank with a squad of a dozen men and two machine guns. 
This little unit went into position in a place commanding 
the forked highways which converged not far from the 
northern approach of the iron bridge crossing the river. 
It was this unit's function to prevent the enemy advance 
from this direction. The unit was separated from its 
comrades on the south bank by the river and about two 
hundred yards. In spite of the fact that the enemy ar- 
tillery intensified its shelling of the south bank, the Amer- 
ican machine gunners remained at their posts without 
firing and played a waiting game. 

With the coming of dawn the Germans began to make 
their rushes for the bridges. Small compact forces would 
dart forward carrying light machine guns and ammuni- 
tion with them. They encountered a terrific burst of 
American fire and wilted in front of it. Those that sur- 
vived crawled back to the shelter of protecting walls, 
where they were re-enforced with fresh units, and again 
the massed formations charged down the streets toward 
the bridges. The slaughter of Germans increased until 
the approaches were dotted, with bodies of the enemy 
slain. 

On June ist, the Germans having consolidated posi- 
tions on the hills commanding the city from the north, 
they directed a terrific artillery and machine gun fire into 
our exposed positions on the south bank, as well as the 
small posts still held on the north bank by Lieutenant 



290 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

Bissell and his machine gunners. Although the position 
held by the little American group had long been consid- 
ered untenable, the members of it stuck it out until night- 
fall, when they received orders to retire to the south 
bank. At the same time, French colonials which had 
held a position throughout the day on the north bank on 
the edge of the town, withdrew in accordance with the 
same plan. The retirement of both parties was covered 
by our machine gunners on the south bank, who poured 
a hot fire into the evacuated areas as the Germans began 
occupying them. 

By 10:30 that night the completion of the movement 
was signalised by a terrific explosion, as the French 
colonials blew up one of the stone bridges over which 
they had withdrawn. But the destruction of the bridge 
had cut off the little band of Americans and left them 
almost surrounded by the enemy on the north bank of 
the river, which was now becoming strongly populated 
by the enemy. Through the darkness could be heard 
the sound of shuffling, hobnailed boots, and even above 
the crack of the guns there came the weird swish of 
the grey coats as they pushed forward in mass forma- 
tions. 

The little party of thirteen Americans dismantled their 
guns and, with each man carrying his allotted piece, they 
began working their way along the river bank toward 
the main bridge, where they discovered that the enemy 
was almost upon them. They immediately went into 
position behind the stone parapet on the very brink of 
the river, and, although in constant danger from the 
American fire that poured out from the south bank, they 
poured streams of lead point-blank into the advancing 
German ranks. 

The Americans on the south bank were not aware of 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 291 

the plight of the little party on the north bank. In spite 
of their losses, the Germans continued their grewsome 
rushes toward the approaches of the iron bridge across 
which our machine gunners were pouring a devastating 
fire. Lieutenant Bissell and his men made one effort to 
cross the bridge, but were forced to crawl back to shelter 
on the north bank, carrying with them three of their 
wounded. They found themselves between a cross-fire. 
Then Bissell, alone, approached as near as he dared, and 
the first intimation that the Americans on the south bank 
had of the fact that Americans were in front of them 
was when Lieutenant Cobey heard Bissell's voice calling 
his name. A cease fire order was immediately given and 
Bissell and his men rushed across the bridge, carrying 
their wounded with them. 

On the following day the Germans were in occupation 
of all the houses facing the north bank of the river, and 
could be seen from time to time darting from one shelter 
to another. Throughout the day their artillery main- 
tained a terrific downpour of shells on the positions held 
by our men on the south bank. So intense was the rifle 
fire and activity of snipers, that it meant death to appear 
in the open. The Americans manned their guns through- 
out the day, but refrained from indulging in machine gun 
fire because it was not desired to reveal the locations 
of the guns. Nightfall approached with a quiet that was 
deadly ominous of impending events. 

At nine o'clock the enemy formations lunged forward 
to the attack. Their dense masses charged down the 
streets leading toward the river. They sang as they ad- 
vanced. The orders, as revealed in documents captured 
later, came straight from the high command and de- 
manded the acquisition of a foothold on the south bank 



292 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

at all costs. They paid the costs, but never reached the 
south bank. 

The American machine gun fire was withering. Time 
after time, in the frequent rushes throughout the night, 
the remnants of enemy masses would reach sometimes 
as far as the centre of the big bridge, but none of them 
succeeded in reaching the south bank. The bridge be- 
came carpeted with German dead and wounded. They 
lay thick in the open streets near the approaches. By 
morning their dead were piled high on the bridge and 
subsequent rushes endeavoured to advance over the 
bodies of their fallen comrades. In this battle of the 
bridges and the streets, our men showed a courage and 
determination which aroused the admiration of the 
French officers, who were aware by this time that forty- 
eight hours before these same American soldiers had seen 
battle for the first time. 

Our machine gunners turned the northern bank of the 
river into a No Man's Land. Their vigilance was un- 
relenting and every enemy attempt to elude it met with 
disaster. There were serious American casualties during 
that terrific fire, but they were nothing in comparison with 
the thousand or more German dead that dotted the streets 
and clogged the runways of the big bridge in piles. The 
last night of the fight enormous charges of explosive were 
placed beneath the bridge and discharged. 

The bridge was destroyed. High into the air were 
blown bits of stone, steel, timber, debris, wreckage and 
the bodies of German dead, all to fall back into the river 
and go bobbing up and down in the waters of the Marne. 

Thus did the Americans save the day at Chateau- 
Thierry, but it became immediately necessary for the 
French high command to call upon our young forces for 
another great effort. In response to this call, the Second 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 293 

United States Division, including one brigade of the 
United States Marines, the 5th and 6th Regiments, 
started for the front. The division was then occupying 
support positions in the vicinity of Gisors behind the 
Picardy Hne. At four o'clock on the morning of May 
31st the Marine brigade and regiments of United States 
infantry, the 9th and the 23rd Regulars, boarded camions, 
twenty to thirty men and their equipment in each vehicle. 

They were bound eastward to the valley of the Marne. 
The road took them through the string of pretty villages 
fifteen miles to the north of Paris. The trucks loaded 
with United States troops soon became part of the end- 
less traffic of war that was pouring northward and east- 
ward toward the raging front. Our men soon became 
coated with the dust of the road. The French people in 
the villages through which they passed at top speed 
cheered them and threw flowers into the lorries. 

Between Meaux and Chateau-Thierry, where the road 
wound along the Marne, our men encountered long 
trains of French refugees, weary mothers carrying hun- 
gry babies at the breast, farm wagons loaded with house- 
hold belongings, usually surmounted hj feather mat- 
tresses on which rode grey-haired grandfathers and 
grandmothers. This pitiful procession was moving 
toward the rear driving before it flocks of geese and 
herds of cattle. On the other side of the road war, grim 
war, moved in the opposite direction. 

The Second Division was bound for the line to the 
northwest of Chateau-Thierry. On June ist, the 6th 
Marines relieved the French on the support lines. The 
sector of the 6th Regiment joined on the left the sector 
held by two battalions of the 5th. The line on the right 
was held by the French. On June 2nd, the hard-pressed 
French line, weak and weary from continual rear guard 



294 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

actions, over a hard fighting period of almost a week, 
fell back by prearranged plan and passed through the 
support positions which we held. To fill gaps between 
units, the Marines extended their brigade sector to be- 
tween twelve and fourteen kilometres. As the French 
withdrew to the rear, hard pressed by the enemy, the 
Marines held the new first line. 

The regimental headquarters of the 6th was located 
in a stone farmhouse at a cross-roads called La Voie 
Chatel, situated between the villages of Champillon and 
Lucy-le-Bocage. There was clear observation from that 
point toward the north. At five o'clock in the afternoon 
on that day of clear visibility, the Germans renewed their 
attacks from the north and northeast toward a position 
called Hill 165, which was defended by the 5th Regiment. 

The Germans advanced in two solid columns across a 
field of golden wheat. More than half of the two col- 
umns had left the cover of the trees and were moving 
in perfect order across the field when the shrapnel fire 
from the American artillery in the rear got range on 
the target. Burst after burst of white smoke suddenly 
appeared in the air over the column, and under each 
burst the ground was marked with a circle of German 
dead. It was not barrage fire: it was individual firing 
against two individual moving targets and its success 
spoke well for the training which that brigade of Ameri- 
can artillery had received. 

French aviators from above directed the fire of our 
guns, and from high in the air signalled down their 
''bravos" in congratulation on the excellent work. At 
the same time, the machine gunners of the 5th covered 
the ravines and wooded clumps with a hot fire to pre- 
vent small bodies of the enemy from infiltrating through 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 295 

our lines. The French marvelled at the deliberateness 
and accuracy of our riflemen. 

The Germans, unaware that a change had talcen 
place in the personnel that faced them, reeled back de- 
moralised and unable to understand how such a sudden 
show of resistance had been presented by the weakened 
French troops which they had been driving before them 
for a week. The enemy's advance had been made openly 
and confidently in the mistaken flush of victory. Their 
triumphant advances of the previous week had more than 
supported the statements of the German officers, who 
had told their men that they were on the road to Paris — 
the end of the war and peace. It was in this mood of 
victory that the enemy encountered the Marines' stone 
wall and reeled back in surprise. 

That engagement, in addition to lowering the enemy 
morale, deprived them of their offensive spirit and placed 
them on the defensive. The next few days were spent 
in advancing small strong points and the strengthening of 
positions. In broad daylight one group of Marines 
rushed a German machine gun pit in the open, killed or 
wounded every man in the crew, disabled the gun and 
got back to their lines in safety. 

It was at five o'clock on the bright afternoon of June 
6th that the United States Marines began to carve their 
way into history in the battle of the Bois de Belleau. 
Major General Harbord, former Chief of Staff to Gen- 
eral Pershing, was in command of the Marine brigade. 
Orders were received for a general advance on the brigade 
front. The main objectives were the eastern edge of the 
Bois de Belleau and the towns of Bussiares, Torcy and 
Bouresches. 

Owing to the difficulty of liaison in the thickets of the 
wood, and because of the almost impossible task of di- 



296 "AND THFY THOl GHT 



reeling it in eonjun^ on wich the advanur^- (ines, the 
artillery preparation for che attack waS nxessarlly '>nef. 
At five o'clock to the dot the Marines m v^ed ^u. fro^n 
the woods in perfect order, and «?tarted aero 
fields in four long waves. It was a ueaut- 'nl sigh 
men of ours going across those flat fie.^ toward ti 
tree clusters beyond from which the Gernians pourea 
a murderous machine gun fire. 

The woods were impregnated with nests of machine 
guns, but our advance proved irresistible. Many of our 
men fell, but those that survived pushed on through the 
woods, bayoneting right and left and firing as they 
charged. So sweeping was the advance that in some 
places small isolated units of our men found themselves 
with Germans both before and behind them. 

The enemy put up a stubborn resistance on the left, 
and it was not until later in the evening that this part of 
the line reached the northeast edge of the woods, after it 
had completely surrounded a most populous machine gun 
nest which was located on a rocky hill. During the 
fighting Colonel Catlin was wounded and Captain Las- 
pierre, the French liaison officer, was gassed, two casual- 
ties which represented a distinct blow to the brigade, but 
did not hinder its further progress. 

On the right Lieutenant Robertson, with twenty sur- 
vivors out of his entire platoon, emerged from the ter- 
rific enemy barrage and took the town of Bouresches at 
the point of the bayonet. Captain Duncan, receiving 
word that one Marine company, with a determination to 
engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, had gone two 
hundred yards in advance, raced forward on the double 
quick with the 96th Marine Company, and was met by a 
terrific machine gun barrage from both sides of Bou- 
resches. 



WE W^^ -O^iriZ. 297 



Lieyt^np^r ^'' . , , ^aw Duncan and 

^^tUii :rrr^ li^^^6i ^ing'cluWn like flies as they 

"' ihedw ^iR^k^ ' i^^ ^^ f ^ Lieutenant Bow- 

'?'»fit /l^' ''^* li ^'ound, his face white with pam, 

r^j^^f VtutiJ " ,r J'^^^^d with a bullet in his shoulder. 

r. iC'ir.,^r'i!. ^ hg a stick and with his pipe in his mouth, 
..owed down in the rain of lead. Robertson saw 
_.-ental Surgeon Osborne pick Duncan up. With the 
aid of a Hospital Corps man, they had just gained the 
shelter of some trees when a shell wiped all three of them 
out. 

In the street fighting that ensued in Bouresches, Lieu- 
tenant Robertson's orderly, Private Dunlavy, who was 
later killed in the defence of the town, captured one of 
the enemy's own machine guns and turned it against 
them. 

In the dense woods the Germans showed their mas- 
tery of machine gun manipulation and the method of in- 
filtration by which they would place strong units in our 
rear and pour in a deadly fire. Many of these guns were 
located on rocky ridges, from which they could fire to 
all points. These Marines worked with reckless courage 
against heavy odds, and the Germans exacted a heavy 
toll for every machine gun that was captured or disabled, 
but in spite of losses the Marine advance continued. 

Lieutenant Overton, commanding the 76th Company, 
made a brilliant charge against a strong German position 
at the top of a rocky hill. He and his men captured all 
of the guns and all of their crews. Overton was hit 
later when the Germans retaliated by a concentration of 
fire against the captured position for forty-eight hours. 

Lieutenant Robertson, according to the report brought 
back by a regimental runner, was last seen flat on a rock 
not twenty yards away from one enemy gun, at which 



298 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

he kept shooting with an automatic in each hand. He 
was hit three times before he coijsen'-, 
carry him to the rear. 

^'There was not an officer left m tl^ 
according to a letter by Major Fran 
tant of the Sixth. "Major Sibley ai.^ ...^ ^.^j^..^... .^- 
organised them under close fire and led them in a charge 
that put one particular machines gun nest out of business 
at the most critical time in all the fighting. I heard later 
that at that stage some one .?aid : *Major Sibley ordered 
that — ' and another man sail: 'Where in hell is Sibley?' 
Sibley was twenty yards away at that time and a hush 
went down the line when hey saw him step out to lead 
the charge. 

"And when the word got around through that dead- 
tired, crippled outfit that 'the Old Man' was on the line, 
all hell could not have stopped that rush." 

In such fashion did the Marines go through the Bois 
de Belleau. Their losses were heavy, but they did the 
work. The sacrifice was necessary. Paris was in dan- 
ger. The Marines constituted the thin line between the 
enemy and Paris. The Marines not only held that line — 
they pushed it forward. 

The fighting was terrific. In one battalion alone the 
casualties numbered sixty-four per cent, officers and 
sixty-four per cent. men. Several companies came out 
of the fighting under command of their first sergeants, all 
of the officers having been killed or wounded. 

I witnessed some of that fighting. I was with the 
Marines at the opening of the battle. I never saw men 
charge to their death with finer spirit. I am sorry that 
wounds prevented me from witness) .g the victorious con- 
clusion of the engagement. In view of my subsequent 
absence from the fight, I wish tO' give credit and thanks 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 299 

at this place to Major Frank E. Evans, who as Adju- 
tant of the 6th Regiment of Marines, provided me with 
much of the foregoing material which occurred while 
I was in the hospital. 

The bravery of that Marine brigade in the Bois de 
Belleau fight will ever remain a bright chapter in the 
records of the American Army. For the performance 
of deeds of exceptional valour, more than a hundred 
Marines were awarded Distinguished Service Crosses. 
General Pershing, in recognition of the conduct of the 
Second Division, issued the following order: 

"It is with inexpressible pride and satisfaction that 
your commander recounts your glorious deeds on the field 
of battle. In the early days of June on a front of twenty 
kilometres, after night marches and with only the re- 
serve rations which you carried, you stood like a wall 
against the enemy advance on Paris. For this timely 
action you have received the thanks of the French people 
whose homes you saved and the generous praise of your 
comrades in arms. 

"Since the organisation of our sector, in the face of 
strong opposition, you have advanced your lines two 
kilometres on a front of eight kilometres. You have 
engaged and defeated with great loss three German di- 
visions and have occupied important strong points — Bel- 
leau Wood, Bouresches, and Vaux. You have taken 
about 1,400 prisoners, many machine guns, and much 
other material. The complete success of the infantry 
was made possible by the splendid co-operation of the 
artillery, by the aid and assistance of the engineer and 
signal troops, by the diligent and watchful care of the 
medical and supply services, and by the unceasing work 



300 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

of the well-organised staff. All elements of the division 
have worked together as a well-trained machine. 

"Amid the dangers and trials of battle, every officer 
and every man has done well his part. Let the stirring 
deeds, hardships, and sacrifices of the past month re- 
main forever a bright spot in our history. Let the sa- 
cred memory of our fallen comrades spur us on to re- 
newed effort and to the glory of American arms." 

All of the German prisoners captured by the Marines 
in the Bois de Belleau could express only surprise over 
the fighting capacity of their captors. Prisoners' state- 
ments are not entirely trustworthy, but here is one that 
was not intended for American consumption. It was writ- 
ten by a German soldier, who was killed in the Bois de 
Belleau before he had an opportunity to mail it. It was 
removed from his body. It reads: 

'Trance, June 21, 1918. 
"We are now in the battle zone and canteens dare not 
come to us on account of the enemy, for the Americans 
are bombarding the villages fifteen kilometres behind the 
present front with long-range guns, and you will know 
that the canteen outfit and the others who are lying in 
reserve do not venture very far, for it is not 'pleasant to 
eat cherries* with the Americans. The reason for that 
is that they have not yet had much experience. The 
American divisions are still too fiery. They are the first 
divisions that the French have entered. . . . We will also 
show the Americans how good we are, for the day be- 
fore yesterday we bombarded them heavily with our 
gas. About 400 of us are lying around here. We have 
one comer of the woods and the American has the other 
comer. That is not nice, for all of a sudden he rushes 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 301 

forward and one does not know it beforehand. There- 
fore, one must shoot at every little noise, for one cannot 
trust them. Here always two men have dug a hold for 
themselves. Here one lies day and night without a blan- 
ket, only with a coat and a shelter-half. One freezes at 
night like a tailor, for the nights are fiercely cold. I hope 
that I will be lucky enough to escape from this horrible 
mess, for up to now I have always been lucky. Many of 
my comrades are already buried here. The enemy sweeps 
every evening the whole countryside with machine gun 
and rifle fire, and then artillery fire. But we in front line 
are safer than in the support position. At present our 
food is miserable. We are now fed upon dried vegetables 
and marmalade and when at night we obtain more food 
it is unpalatable. It is half sour and all cold. In the 
daytime we receive nothing." 

But it might be wise to support this statement from a 
German soldier in the ranks by excerpts from an official 
German army report which was captured July 7th on a 
German officer. The document was a carefully weighed 
treatise on the fighting capacity of the United States 
Marines. The document had the following heading: 

"Intelligence Officer of the Supreme Command at Army 
Headquarters, Number y, J. Number 3,528, Army 
Headquarters, June ly, 19 17. 

"Second American Infantry Division. 

"Examination of Prisoners from the 5th, 6th, pth and 
23rd Regiments, captured from June 5th to 14th, in the 
Bouresches Sector/' 

After setting forth all information gained, concerning 
the purpose of attack and the arrival of the American 



302 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

units on the line, the German IntelHgence Report con- 
tinues, as follows: 

"The Second American Division may be classed as a 
very good division, perhaps even as assault troops. The 
various attacks of both regiments on Belleau Wood were 
carried out with dash and recklessness. The moral ef- 
fect of our firearms did not materially check the ad- 
vances of the enemy. The nerves of the Americans are 
still unshaken. 

"Value of the individual — the individual soldiers 
are very good They are healthy, vigorous, and physi- 
cally well-developed men, of ages ranging from eighteen 
to twenty-eight, who at present lack only necessary train- 
ing to make them redoubtable opponents. The troops 
are fresh and full of straightforward confidence. A re- 
mark of one of the prisoners is indicative of their spirit : 
^We kill or get killed.' 

"Morale — the prisoners in general make an alert and 
pleasing impression. Regarding military matters, how- 
ever, they do not show the slightest interest. Their su- 
periors keep them purposely without knowledge of the 
military subjects. For example, most of them have never 
seen a map. They are no longer able to describe the vil- 
lages and roads through which they marched. Their idea 
of the organisation of their unit is entirely confused. 
For example, one of them told us that his brigade had 
six regiments and his division twenty-four. They still 
regard the war from the point of view of the 'big 
brother* who comes to help his hard-pressed brethren 
and is therefore welcomed everywhere. A certain moral 
background is not lacking. The majority of the prisoners 
simply took as a matter of course that they have come 
to Europe to defend their country. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 303 

*'Only a few of the troops are of pure American or- 
igin; the majority is of German, Dutch and ItaHan par- 
entage, but these semi-Americans, almost all of whom 
were born in America and never have been in Europe be- 
fore, fully feel themselves to be true born sons of their 
country. 

(Signed) *'Von Berg, 
"Lieutenant and Intelligence Officer/* 

Since the days I read Hugo's chapters on the Battle 
of Waterloo in 'Xes Miserables," I always considered as 
an ideal of fighting capacity and the military spirit of 
sacrifice the old sergeant of Napoleon's Old Guard. 
Hugo made me vividly see that old sergeant standing on 
a field with a meagre remnant of the Old Guard gathered 
around him. Unable to resist further, but unwilling to 
accept surrender, he and his followers faced the British 
cannon. The British, respecting this admirable demon- 
stration of courage, ceased firing and called out to them, 
''Brave Frenchmen, surrender.'* 

The old sergeant, who was about to die, refused to ac- 
cept this offer of his life from the enemy. Into the 
very muzzles of the British cannon the sergeant hurled 
back the offer of his life with one word. That word 
was the vilest epithet in the French language. The can- 
nons roared and the old sergeant and his survivors died 
with the word on their lips. Hugo wisely devoted an 
entire chapter to that single word. 

But I have a new ideal to-day. I found it in the Bois 
de Belleau. A small platoon line of Marines lay on their 
faces and bellies under the trees at the edge of a wheat 
field. Two hundred yards across that flat field the enemy 
was located in trees. I peered into the trees but could 
see nothing, yet I knew that every leaf in the foliage 



304 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

screened scores of German machine guns that swept the 
field with lead. The bullets nipped the tops of the young 
wheat and ripped the bark from the trunks of the trees 
three feet from the ground on which the Marines lay. 
The minute for the Marine advance was approaching. 
An old gunnery sergeant commanded the platoon in the 
absence of the lieutenant, who had been shot and was out 
of the fight. This old sergeant was a Marine veteran. 
His cheeks were bronzed with the wind and sun of the 
seven seas. The service bar across his left breast showed 
that he had fought in the Philippines, in Santo Domingo, 
at the walls of Pekin, and in the streets of Vera Cruz. 
I make no apologies for his language. Even if Hugo 
were not my precedent, I would make no apologies. To 
me his words were classic, if not sacred. 

As the minute for the advance arrived, he arose from 
the trees first and jumped out onto the exposed edge of 
that field that ran with lead, across which he and his 
men were to charge. Then he turned to give the charge 
order to the men of his platoon — his mates — the men he 
loved. He said: 

"Come on, you sons-o'-bitches ! do you want to 
live forever?" 



I 



I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 305 

CHAPTER XVI 

WOUNDED — HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT 



Just how does it feel to be shot on the field of bat- 
tle? Just what is the exact sensation when a bullet 
burns its way through your flesh or crashes through your 
bones ? 

I always wanted to know. As a police reporter I 
^'covered" scores of shooting cases, but I could never 
learn from the victims what the precise feeling was as 
the piece of lead struck. For long years I had cherished 
an inordinate curiosity to know that sensation, if pos- 
sible, without experiencing it. I was curious and eager 
for enlightenment just as I am still anxious to know how 
it is that some people willingly drink buttermilk when it 
isn't compulsory. 

I am still in the dark concerning the inexplicable taste 
for the sour, clotted product of a sweet, well-meaning 
cow and the buttery, but I have found out how it feels to 
be shot. I know it now by experience. 

Three Germans bullets that violated my person left 
me as many scars and at the same time completely satis- 
fied my curiosity. I think now if I can ever muster up 
enough courage to drink a glass of buttermilk, I shall 
have bereft myself of my last inquisitiveness. 

It happened on June 6th just to the northwest of 
Chateau-Thierry in the Bois de Belleau. On the morning 
of that day I left Paris by motor for a rush to the front. 
The Germans were on that day within forty miles of the 
capital of France. On the night before, the citizens of 



3o6 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

Paris, in their homes and hotels, had heard the roll of the 
guns drawing ever nearer. Many had left the city. 

But American divisions were in the line between the 
enemy and their goal, and the operation of these divisions 
was my object in hustling to the front. On the broad, 
paved highway from Paris to Meaux, my car passed miles 
and miles of loaded motor trucks bound frontward. Long 
lines of these carried thousands of Americans. Other 
long lines were loaded down with shells and cartridge 
boxes. On the right side of the road, bound for Paris 
and points back of the line, was an endless stream of 
ambulances and other motor trucks bringing back 
wounded. Dense clouds of dust hung like a pall over 
the length of the road. The day was hot, the dust was 
stifling. 

From Meaux we proceeded along the straight highway 
that borders the south banks of the Marne to LaFerte, 
at which place we crossed the river and turned north to 
Montreuil, which was the newly occupied headquarters 
of the Second United States Army Division, General 
Omar Bundy commanding. On the day before, the two 
infantry brigades of that division, one composed of the 
5th and 6th U. S. Marines, under command of Brigadier 
General Harbord, the other composed of the 9th and 
23rd U. S. Infantry, had been thrown into the line which 
was just four miles to the north and east. 

The fight had been hot during the morning. The 
Marines on the left flank of the divisional sector had 
been pushing their lines forward through triangle woods 
and the village of Lucy-le-Bocage. The information of 
their advances was given to me by the Divisional In- 
telligence officer, who occupied a large room in the rear 
of the building that was used as Divisional Headquarters. 
The building was the village Mairie, which also included 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 307 

the village school-house. Now the desks of the school 
children were being used by our staff officers and the 
walls and blackboards were covered with maps. 

I was accompanied by Lieutenant Oscar Hartzell, for- 
merly of the New York Times staff. We learned that 
orders from the French High Command called for a con- 
tinuation of the Marine advance during the afternoon 
and evening, and this information made it possible for 
us to make our plans. Although the Germans were 
shelling roads immediately behind the front, Lieutenant 
Hartzell and I agreed to proceed by motor from Mon- 
treuil a mile or so to a place called La Voie du Chatel, 
which was the headquarters of Colonel Neveille of the 
5th Marines. Reaching that place around four o'clock, 
we turned a despatch over to the driver of our staff car 
with instructions that he proceed with all haste to Paris 
and there submit it to the U. S. Press Bureau. 

Lieutenant Hartzell and I announced our intentions of 
proceeding at once to the front line to Colonel Neveille. 

*'Go wherever you like," said the regimental com- 
mander, looking up from the outspread maps on the 
kitchen table in the low-ceilinged stone farm-house that 
he had adopted as headquarters. "Go as far as you like, 
but I want to tell you it's damn hot up there." 

An hour later found us in the woods to the west of 
the village of Lucy le Bocage, in which German shells 
were continually falling. To the west and north another 
nameless cluster of farm dwellings was in flames. Huge 
clouds of smoke rolled up like a smudge against the 
background of blue sky. 

The ground under the trees in the wood was covered 
with small bits of white paper. I could not account for 
their presence until I examined several of them and found 
that these were letters from American mothers and wives 



308 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and sweethearts — letters — whole packages of them, 
which the tired, dog-weary Marines had been forced to 
remove from their packs and destroy in order to ease the 
straps that cut into aching grooves in their shoulders. 
Circumstances also forced the abandonment of much other 
material and equipment. 

Occasional shells were dropping in the woods, which 
were also within range from a long distance, indirect ma- 
chine gun fire from the enemy. Bits of lead, wobbling in 
their flight at the end of their long trajectory, sung 
through the air above our heads and clipped leaves and 
twigs from the branches. On the edge of the woods we 
came upon a hastily dug out pit in which there V\^ere 
two American machine guns and their crews. 

The field in front of the woods sloped gently down 
some two hundred yards to another cluster of trees. 
This cluster was almost as big as the one we were in. 
Part of it was occupied by the Germans. Our machine 
gunners maintained a continual fire into that part held 
by the enemy. 

Five minutes before five o'clock, the order for the 
advance reached our pit. It was brought there by a 
second lieutenant, a platoon commander. 

**What are you doing here?" he asked, looking at the 
green brassard and red "C" on my left arm. 

"Looking for the big story," I said. 

"If I were you I'd be about forty miles south of this 
place," said the Lieutenant, "but if you want to see the 
fun, stick around. We are going forward in five 
minutes.'* 

That was the last I saw of him until days later, when 
both of us, wounded, met in the hospital. Of course, the 
first thing he said was, "I told you so." 

We hurriedly finished the contents of the can of cold 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 309 

"Corned Willy" which one of the machine gunners and 
I were eating. The machine guns were taken down 
and the barrels, cradles and tripods were handed over to 
the members of the crew whose duties it was to carry 
them. 

And then we went over. There are really no heroics 
about it. There is no bugle call, no sword waving, no 
dramatic enunciation of catchy commands, no theatrical- 
ism — it's just plain get up and go over. And it is done 
just the same as one would walk across a peaceful wheat 
field out in Iowa. 

But with the appearance of our first line, as it stepped 
from the shelter of the woods into the open exposure of 
the flat field, the woods opposite began to cackle and rat- 
tle with the enemy machine gun fire. Our men advanced 
in open order, ten and twelve feet between men. Some- 
times a squad would run forward fifty feet and drop. 
And as its members flattened on the ground for safety 
another squad would rise from the ground and make 
another rush. 

They gained the woods. Then we could hear shouting. 
Then we knew that work was being done with the bayo- 
net. The machine gun fire continued in intensity and 
then died down completely. The wood had been won. 
Our men consolidated the position by moving forward in 
groups ever on the watch-out for snipers in the trees. 
A number of these were brought down by our crack pistol 
shots. 

At different times during the advance runners had come 
through the woods inquiring for Major John Berry, the 
battalion commander. One of these runners attached 
himself to Lieutenant Hartzell and myself and together 
the three of us located the Major coming through the 
woods. He granted permission for Lieutenant Hartzell 



310 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and me to accompany him and we started forward, in all 
a party of some fifteen, including ten runners attached 
to the battalion commander. 

Owing to the continual eviden- s of German snipers 
in the trees, every one in our pany carried a revolver 
ready in his hand, with the excevtion of myself. Cor- 
respondents, you will remember, are non-combatants and 
must be unarmed. I carried a notebook, but it was loaded. 
We made our way down the slope of the wooded hillside. 

Midway down the slope, the hill was bisected by a 
sunken road which turned forward on the left. Lying 
in the road were a number of French bodies and several 
of our men who had been brought down but five minutes 
before. We crossed that road hurriedly knowing that it 
was covered from the left by German machine guns. 

At the bottom of the slope there was a V-shaped field. 
The apex of the V was on the left. From left to right 
the field was some two hundred yards in width. The 
point where we came out of the woods was about one 
hundred yards from the apex. At that point the field was 
about one hundred yards across. It was perfectly flat and 
was covered with a young crop of oats between ten and 
fifteen itiches high. 

This V-shaped oat field was bordered on all sides by 
dense clusters of trees. In the trees on the side oppo- 
site the side on which we stood, were German machine 
guns. We could hear them. We could not see them but 
we knew that every leaf and piece of greenery there vi- 
brated from their fire and the tops of the young oats 
waved and swayed with the streams of lead that swept 
across. 

Major Berry gave orders for us to follow him at inter- . 
vals of ten or fifteen yards. Then he started across the ! 
'field alone at the head of the party. I followed. Be- ■ 



i 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 311 

hind me came Hartzell. Then the woods about us began 
to rattle fiercely. It was unusually close range. That 
lead travelled so fast that we could not hear it as it 
passed. We soon had visual demonstration of the hot 
place we were in when we began to see the dust puffs 
that the bullets kicked up in the dirt around our feet. 

Major Berry had advanced well beyond the centre of 
the field when I saw him turn toward me and heard him 
shout : 

"Get down everybody.'* 

We all fell on our faces. And then it began to come 
hot and fast. Perfectly withering volleys of lead swept 
the tops of the oats just over us. For some reason it 
did not seem to be coming from the trees hardly a hun- 
dred yards in front of us. It was coming from a new 
direction — from the left. 

I was busily engaged flattening myself on the ground. 
Then I heard a shout in front of me. It came from Major 
Berry. I lifted my head cautiously and looked forward. 
The Major was making an effort to get to his feet. With 
his right hand he was savagely grasping his left wrist. 

"My hand's gone," he shouted. One of the streams of 
lead from the left had found him. A ball had entered 
his left arm at the elbow, had travelled down the side 
of the bone, tearing away muscles and nerves of the fore- 
arm and lodging itself in the palm of his hand. His pain 
was excruciating. 

"Get down. Flatten out, Major," I shouted, and he 
dropped to the ground. I did not know the extent of his 
injuries at that time but I did know that he was courting 
death every minute he stood up. 

"We've got to get out of here," said the Major. "We've 
got to get forward. They'll start shelling this open field 
in a few minutes." 



312 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

I lifted my head for another cautious look. 

I judged that I was lying about thirty yards from the 
edge of the trees in front of us. The Major was about 
ten yards in front of me. 

''You are twenty yards from the trees," I shouted to 
the Major. '*I am crawling over to you now. Wait un- 
til I get there and Fll help you. Then we'll get up and 
make a dash for it." 

"All right," replied the Major, "hurry along." 

I started forward, keeping as flat on the ground as it 
was possible to do so and at the same time move. As far 
as was feasible, I pushed forward by digging in with my 
toes and elbows extended in front of me. It was my 
object to make as little movement in the oats as possible. 
I was not mistaken about the intensity of fire that swept 
the field. It was terrific. 

And then it happened. The lighted end of a cigarette 
touched me in the fleshy part of my upper left arm. That 
was all. It just felt like a sudden burn and nothing worse. 
The burned part did not seem to be any larger in area 
than that part which could be burned by the lighted end 
of a cigarette. 

At the time there was no feeling within the arm, 
that is, no feeling as to aches or pain. There was nothing 
to indicate that the bullet, as I learned several days later, 
had gone through the bicep muscle of the upper arm 
and had come out on the other side. The only sensation 
perceptible at the time was the burning touch at the spot 
where the bullet entered. 

I glanced down at the sleeve of my uniformed coat and 
could not even see the hole where the bullet had entered. 
Neither was there any sudden flow of blood. At the time 
there was no stiffness or discomfort in the arm and I 
continued to use it to work my way forward. 



■ <*> 

i 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 313 

Then the second one hit. It nicked the top of my left 
shoulder. And again came the burning sensation, only 
this time the area affected seemed larger. Hitting as it 
did in the meaty cap of the shoulder, I feared that there 
would be no further use for the arm until it had received 
attention, but again I was surprised when I found upon 
experiment that I could still use it. The bone seemed to 
be affected in no way. 

Again there was no sudden flow of blood, nor stiffness. 
It seemed hard for me to believe at the time, but I had 
been shot twice, penetrated through by two bullets and 
was experiencing not any more pain than I had experi- 
enced once when I dropped a lighted cigarette on the 
back of my hand. I am certain that the pain in no way 
approached that sensation which the dentist provides 
when he drills into a tooth with a live nerve in it. 

So I continued to move toward the Major. Occa- 
sionally I would shout something to him, although, at this 
time, I am unable to remember what it was. I only 
wanted to let him know I was coming. I had fears, based 
on the one look that I had obtained of his pain-distorted 
face, that he had been mortally shot in the body. 

And then the third one struck me. In order to keep as 
close to the ground as possible, I had swung my chin 
to the right so that I was pushing forward with my left 
cheek flat against the ground and in order to accommodate 
this position of the head, I had moved my steel helmet 
over so that it covered part of my face on the right. 

Then there came a crash. It sounded to me like some 
one had dropped a glass bottle into a porcelain bathtub. 
A barrel of whitewash tipped over and it seemed that 
everything in the world turned white. That was the sen- 
sation. I did not recognise it because I have often been 



314 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

led to believe and often heard it said that when one re- 
ceives a blow on the head everything turns black. 

Maybe I am contrarily constructed, but in my case 
everything became pure white. I remember this dis- 
tinctly because my years of newspaper training had been 
in but one direction — to sense and remember. So it 
was that, even without knowing it, my mind was making 
mental notes on every impression that my senses regis- 
tered. 

I did not know yet where I had been hit or what the 
bullet had done. I knew that I was still knowing things. 
I did not know whether I was alive or dead but I did 
know that my mind was still working. I was still men- 
tally taking notes on every second. 

The first recess in that note-taking came when I asked 
myself the following question: 

^'Am I dead?" 

I didn't laugh or didn't even smile when I asked my- 
self the question without putting it in words. I wanted 
to know. And wanting to know, I undertook to find out. 
I am not aware now that there was any appreciable 
passage of time during this mental progress. I feel cer- 
\ain, however, that I never lost consciousness. 

How was I to find out if I was dead? The shock had 
dfted my head off the ground but I had immediately 
iteplaced it as close to the soil as possible. My twice 
punctured left arm was lying alongside my body. I 
decided to try and move my fingers on my left hand. I 
lid so and they moved. I next moved my left foot. Then 
]' knew I was alive. 

Then I brought my right hand up toward my face 
And placed it to the left of my nose. My fingers rested 
3n something soft and wet. I withdrew the hand and 
looked at it. It was covered with blood. As I looked 




I 



HELMET WORN BY FLOYD GIBBONS WHEN WOUNDED, SHOWING 
DAMAGE CAUSED BY SHRAPNEL 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 315 

at it, I was not aware that my entire vision was confined 
to my right eye, aUhough there was considerable pain in 
the entire left side of my face. 

This was sufficient to send me on another mental inves- 
tigation. I closed my right eye and — all was dark. My 
first thought following this experiment was that my left 
eye was closed. So I again counselled with myself and 
tried to open my left eye — that is, tried to give the mental 
command that would cause the muscles of the left eye 
to open the lid and close it again. 

I did this but could not feel or verify in any way 
whether the eye lid responded or not. I only knew that 
it remained dark on that side. This brought me to an- 
other conclusion and not a pessimistic one at that. I 
simply believed, in spite of the pain, that something had 
struck me in the eye and had closed it. 

I did not know then, as I know now, that a bullet strik- 
ing the ground immediately under my left cheek bone, 
had ricochetted upward, going completely through the 
left eye and then crashing out through my forehead, 
leaving the eyeball and upper eyelid completely halved, 
the lower eyelid torn away, and a compound fracture of 
the skull. 

Further progress toward the Major was impossible. 
I must confess that I became so intensely interested in the 
weird sensations and subjective research, that I even 
neglected to call out and tell the wounded officer that I 
would not be able to continue to his assistance. I held 
this view in spite of the fact that my original intentions 
were strong. Lying there with my left cheek flat on the 
ground, I was able to observe some minutes later the 
wounded Major rise to his feet and in a perfect hail of 
lead rush forward and out of my line of vision. 

It was several days later, in the hospital, that I learned 



3i6 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

that he reached the shelter of the woods beyond without 
being hit again, and in that place, although suffering 
intense pain, was able to shout back orders which resulted 
in the subsequent wiping out of the machine gun nest 
that had been our undoing. For this supreme effort. 
General Pershing decorated him with the Distinguished 
Service Cross. 

I began to make plans to get out of the exposed posi- 
tion in which I was lying. Whereas the field when I 
started across it had seemed perfectly flat, now it im- 
pressed me as being convex and I was further impressed 
with the belief that I was lying on the very uppermost 
and most exposed curvature of it. There is no doubt 
that the continued stream of machine gun lead that swept 
the field superinduced this belief. I got as close to the 
ground as a piece of paper on top of a table. I remember 
regretting sincerely that the war had reached the stage 
of open movement and one consequence of which was 
that there wasn't a shell hole anywhere to crawl into. 

This did not, however, eliminate the dangerous pos- 
sibility of shelling. With the fatalism that one acquires 
along the fronts, I was ready to take my chances with the 
casual German shell that one might have expected, but I 
devoted much thought to a consideration of the French 
and American artillery some miles behind me. I con- 
sidered the possibility of word having been sent back 
that our advancing waves at this point had been cut down 
by enemy machine gunners who were still in position 
preventing all progress at this place. I knew that such 
information, if sent back, would immediately.be for- 
warded to our guns and then a devastating concentra- 
tion of shells would be directed toward the location of 
the machine gun nests. 

I knew that I was lying one hundred yards from one 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT' 317 

of those nests and I knew that I was well within the 
fatal bursting radius of any shells our gunners might 
direct against that German target. My fear was that 
myself and other American wounded lying in that field 
would die by American guns. That is what would have 
happened if that information had reached our artillery 
and it is what should have happened. 

The lives of the wounded in that field were as nothing 
compared with the importance of wiping out that machine 
gun nest on our left which was holding up the^ entire 
advance. 

I wanted to see what time it was and my watch was 
attached to my left wrist. In endeavouring to get a look 
at it, I found out that my left arm was stiff and racked 
with pain. Hartzell, I knew, had a watch, but I did not 
know where he was lying, so I called out. 

He answered me from some distance away but I could 
not tell how far or in what direction. I could see dimly 
but only at the expense of great pain. When he answered 
I shouted back to him: 

"Are you hit?'* 

"No, are you?" he asked. 

"Yes, what time is it ?" I said. 

"Are you hit badly?" he asked in reply. 

"No, I don't think so," I said. "I think Fm all right". 

"Where are you hit?" he asked. 

"In the head," I said; "I think something hit my eye." 

"In the head, you damn fool," he shouted louder with 
just a bit of anger and surprise in his voice. "How the 
hell can you be all right if you are hit in the head? Are 
you bleeding much?" 

"No," I said. "What time is it, will you tell me?" 

"I'm coming over to get you," shouted Hartzell. 

"Don't move, you damn fool, you want to kill both 



3i8 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

of us?" I hastened to shout back. *'If you start moving, 
don't move near me. I think they think I'm dead." 

*'Well you can't He there and bleed to death," Hartzell 
replied. "We've got to do something to get to hell out 
of here. What'll we do?" 

"Tell me what time it is and how long it will be before 
it's dark," I asked. 

"It's six o'clock now," Hartzell said, "and it won't be 
dark 'til nine ; this is June. Do you think you can stick 
it out?" 

I told him that I thought I could and we were silent 
for some time. Both of us had the feeling that other ears 
— ears working in conjunction with eyes trained along 
the barrels of those machine guns a hundred yards on our 
left — would be aroused to better marksmanship if we 
continued to talk. 

I began to take stock of my condition. During my 
year or more along the fronts I had been through many 
hospitals and from my observations in those institutions 
I had cultivated a keen distaste for one thing — gas gan- 
grene. I had learned from doctors its fatal and horrible 
results and I also had learned from them that it was 
caused by germs which exist in large quantities in any 
ground that has been under artificial cultivation for a 
long period. 

Such was the character of the very field I was lying 
in and I came to the realisation that the wound in the 
left side of my face and head was resting flatly on the 
soil. With my right hand I drew up my British box 
respirator or gas mask and placed this under my head. 
Thus I rested with more confidence, although the machine 
gun lead continued to pass in sheets through the tops 
of the oats not two or three inches above my head. 

All of it was coming from the left, — coming from the 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 319 

German nests located in the trees at the apex of the V- 
shaped field. Those guns were not a hundred yards away 
and they seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of am- 
munition. Twenty feet away on my left a wounded 
Marine was lying. Occasionally I would open my right 
eye for a painful look in his direction. 

He was wounded and apparently unconscious. His 
pack, *'the khaki doll,'* was still strapped between his 
shoulders. Unconsciously he was doing that which all 
wounded men do — that is, to assume the position that 
is the most comfortable. He was trying to roll over on 
his back. 

But the pack was on his back and every time he would 
roll over on this it would elevate his body into full view 
of the German gunners. Then a withering hail of lead 
would sweep the field. It so happened that I was lying 
immediately in line between those German guns and this 
unconscious moving target. As the Marine would roll 
over on top of the pack his chest would be exposed to the 
fire. 

I could see the buttons fly from his tunic and one of 
the shoulder straps of the back pack part as the sprays of 
lead struck him. He would limply roll off the pack over on 
his side. I found myself wishing that he would lie still, 
as every movement of his brought those streams of bul- 
lets closer and closer to my head. I even considered the 
thickness of the box respirator on which I had elevated 
my head off the ground. It was about two inches thick. 

I remembered my French gas mask hanging from my 
shoulder and recalled immediately that it was much flat- 
ter, being hardly half an inch in thickness. I forthwith 
drew up the French mask to my head, extracted the Brit- 
ish one and rested my cheek closer to the ground on the 
French one. Thus, I lowered my head about an inch and 



320 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

a half — an inch and a half that represented worlds of 
satisfaction and some optimism to me. 

Sometimes there were lulls in the firing. During those 
periods of comparative quiet, I could hear the occasional 
moan of other wounded on that field. Very few of them 
cried out and it seemed to me that those who did were 
unconscious when they did it. One man in particular 
had a long, low groan. I could not see him, yet I felt 
he was lying somewhere close to me. In the quiet 
intervals, his unconscious expression of pain reminded 
me of the sound I had once heard made by a calf which 
had been tied by a short rope to a tree. The animal had 
strayed round and round the tree until its entanglements 
in the rope had left it a helpless prisoner. The groan of 
that unseen, unconscious wounded American who laid 
near me on the field that evening sounded exactly like 
the pitiful bawl of that calf. 

Those three hours were long in passing. With the 
successive volleys that swept the field, I sometimes lost 
hope that I could ever survive it. It seemed to me that 
if three German bullets had found me within the space 
of fifteen minutes, I could hardly expect to spend three 
hours without receiving the fatal one. With such 
thoughts on my mind I reopened conversation with 
Hartzell. 

"How's it coming, old man?" I shouted. 

"They're coming damn close," he said ; "how is it with 
you? Are you losing much blood?" 

"No, I'm all right as far as that goes," I replied, "but 
I want you to communicate with my wife, if its *west' 
for me." 

"What's her address?" said Hartzell. 

"It's a long one," I said. "Are you ready to take it?" 

"Shoot," said Hartzell. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 321 

" 'Mrs. Floyd Gibbons, No. 12 Bis, Rue de la Cheva- 
lier de la Barre, Dijon, Cote d''Or, France.' " I said slowly. 

"My God," said Hartzell, ''say it again." 

Back and forth we repeated the address correctly and 
incorrectly some ten or twelve times until Hartzell in- 
formed me that he knew it well enough to sing it. He 
also gave me his wife's address. Then just to make 
conversation he would shout over, every fifteen minutes, 
and tell me that there was just that much less time that 
we would have to lie there. 

I thought that hour between seven and eight o'clock 
dragged the most, but the one between eight and nine 
seemed interminable. The hours were so long, particu- 
larly when we considered that a German machine gun 
could fire three hundred shots a minute. Dusk ap- 
proached slowly. And finally Hartzell called over : 

'T don't think they can see us now," he said ; "let's start 
to crawl back." 

"Which way shall we crawl ?" I asked. 

"Into the woods," said Hartzell. 

"Which woods?" I asked. 

"The woods we came out of, you damn fool," he re- 
plied. 

"Which direction are they in ?" I said, "I've been mov- 
ing around and I don't .know which way I am heading. 
Are you on my left, or on my right?" 

"I can't tell whether I'm on your left or your right," 
he replied. "How are you lying, on your face or on 
your back?" 

"On my face," I said, "and your voice sounds like 
it comes from in back of me and on the left." 

"If that's the case," said Hartzell, "your head is lying 
toward the wrong woods. Work around in a half circle 
and you'll be facing the right direction." 



322 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

I did so and then heard Hartzeirs voice on my right. 
I started moving toward him. Against my better judg- 
ment and expressed wishes, he crawled out toward me 
and met me half way. His voice close in front of me 
surprised me. 

"Hold your head up a little/' he said, "I want to see 
where it hit you." 

"I don't think it looks very nice," I replied, lifting my 
head. I wanted to know how it looked myself, so I pain- 
fully opened the right eye and looked through the oats 
eighteen inches into Hartzell's face. I saw the look of 
horror on it as he looked into mine. 

Twenty minutes later, after crawling painfully through 
the interminable yards of young oats, we reached the edge 
of the woods and safety. 

That's how it feels to be shot. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 323 



CHAPTER XVn 
"good morning, nurse" 

Weakness from the loss of blood began to grow on 
me as Lieutenant Hartzell and I made our way through 
the deepening shadows of the wooded hillside in the 
rear of the field on which I had been shot. In an upright 
position of walking the pains in my head seemed to in- 
crease. We stopped for a minute and, neither of us hav- 
ing first aid kits with us, I resurrected a somewhat soiled 
silk handkerchief with which Hartzell bound up my head 
in a manner that applied supporting pressure over my 
left eye and brought a degree of relief. 

Hartzell told me later that I was staggering slightly 
when we reached a small relief dugout about a mile 
back of the wood. There a medical corps man removed 
the handkerchief and bound my head with a white gauze 
bandage. I was anxious to have the wound cleaned 
but he told me there was no water. He said they had 
been forced to turn it over to the men to drink. This 
seemed to me to be as it should be because my thirst was 
terrific, yet there was no water left. 

We stumbled rearward another half mile and, in the 
darkness, came upon the edge of another wooded area. 
A considerable number of our wounded were lying on 
stretchers on the ground. The Germans were keeping 
up a continual fire of shrapnel and high explosive shell 
in the woods, apparently to prevent the mobilisation of 
reserves, but the doctors, taking care of the wounded, 
proceeded with their work without notice to the whine 
of the shells passing overhead or the bursting of those 



324 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

that landed nearby. They went at their work just as 
though they were caring for injured men on a football 
field. 

Hartzell stretched me out on the ground and soon 
had a doctor bending over me. The doctor removed the 
eye bandage, took one look at what was beneath it and 
then replaced it. I remember this distinctly because at 
the time I made the mental note that the doctor apparently 
considered my head wound beyond anything he could 
repair. He next turned his attention to my arm and 
shoulder. He inserted his scissors into my left sleeve at 
the wrist and ripped it up to the shoulder. He followed 
this operation by cutting through my heavy khaki tunic 
from the shoulder to the collar. A few more snips of 
the nickel-plated blades and my shirt and undershirt 
were cut away. He located the three bullet holes, two 
in the arm and one across the top of the shoulder, and 
bound them up with bandages. 

"We're awful shy on ambulances," he said; "you will 
have to lie here a while." 

'*I feel that I can walk all right if there is no reason 
why I shouldn't," I replied. 

"You ought to be in an ambulance," said the doctor, 
"but if you feel that you can make it, you might take a 
try at it." 

Then turning to Lieutenant Hartzell, he said, "Keep 
right with him, and if he begins to get groggy, make 
him lie down." 

So Hartzell and I resumed our rearward plodding 
or staggering. He walked at my right side and slightly 
in front of me, holding my right arm over his right 
shoulder and thereby giving me considerable support. 
We had not proceeded far before we heard the racing 
motor of an automobile coming from behind us. An 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 325 

occasional shell was dropping along the road we were 
now on. 

A stick struck my legs from behind in the darkness. 
And then an apologetic voice said : 

"Beg your pardon, sir, just feeling along the road for 
shell holes. Ambulance right behind me, sir. Would 
you mind stepping to one side? Come on, Bill," to the 
driver of the ambulance, *'it looks all clear through 
here." 

The automobile with the racing motor turned out 
to be a light ambulance of a popular Detroit make. Its 
speeding engine was pure camouflage for its slow prog- 
ress. It bubbled and steamed at the radiator cap as it 
pushed along at almost a snail's pace. 

"All full?" Hartzell shouted into the darkness of the 
driver's seat. 

"To the brim," responded the driver. "Are you 
wounded ?" 

"No, but I have a wounded man with me," said Hart- 
zell. "He can sit beside you on the seat if you have room." 

"Get right in," said the driver, and Hartzell boosted me 
into the front seat. We pushed along slowly, Hartzell 
walking beside the car and the driver's assistant pro- 
ceeding ahead of us, searching the dark road with his 
cane for new shell craters. 

Occasionally, when our wheels would strike in one of 
these, groans would come from the ambulance proper. 

"Take it easy," would come a voice through pain- 
pressed lips; "for Christ's sake, do you think you are 
driving a truck?" 

I heard the driver tell Hartzell that he had three men 
with bullet splintered legs in the ambulance. Every jolt 
of the car caused their broken bones to jolt and increased 
the pounding of their wearied nerves to an extremity of 



326 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

agony. The fourth occupant of the ambulance, he said, 
had been shot through the lungs. 

Some distance along, there came a knock on the wooden 
partition behind my back, — the partition that separates 
the driver's seat from the ambulance proper. The car 
stopped and the driver and Hartzell went to the rear door 
and opened it. The man with the shot through the lungs 
was half sitting up on his stretcher. He had one hand 
to his mouth and his lips, as revealed in the rays of the 
driver's flashlight, were red wet. 

"Quick — get me — to a doctor," the man said between 
gulps and gurgles. 

The driver considered. He knew we were ten miles 
from the closest doctor. Then he addressed himself 
to the other three stretcher-cases — the men with the tor- 
ture-torn legs. 

"If I go fast, you guys are going to suffer the agonies 
of hell," he said, "and if I go slow this guy with the 
hemorrhage will croak before we get there. How do you 
want me to drive?" 

There was not a minute's silence. The three broken 
leg cases responded almost in unison. 

"Go as fast as you can," they said. 

And we did. With Hartzell riding the running board 
beside me and the crater finder clinging to the mud 
guards on the other side, we sped through the darkness 
regardless of the ruts and shell holes. The jolting was 
severe but never once did there come another complaint 
from the occupants of the ambulance. 

In this manner did we arrive in time at the first medi- 
cal clearing station. I learned later that the life of the 
man with the hemorrhage was saved and he is alive 
to-day. 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 327 

The clearing station was located in an old church on 
the outskirts of a little village. Four times during this 
war the flow and ebb of battle had passed about this old 
edifice. Hartzell half carried me off the ambulance seat 
and into the church. As I felt my feet scrape on the flag- 
stoned flooring underneath the Gothic entrance arch, I 
opened my right eye for a painful survey of the interior. 

The walls, grey with age, appeared yellow in the light 
of the candles and lanterns that were used for illumina- 
tion. Blankets, and bits of canvas and carpet had been 
tacked over the apertures where once stained glass win- 
dows and huge oaken doors had been. These precautions 
were necessary to prevent the lights from shining outside 
the building and betraying our location to the hospital- 
loving eyes of German bombing 'planes whose motors we 
could hear even at that minute, humming in the black 
sky above us. 

Our American wounded were lying on stretchers all 
over the floor. Near the door, where I entered, a num- 
ber of pews had been pushed to one side and on these our 
walking wounded were seated. They were smoking cig- 
arettes and talking and passing observations on every 
fresh case that came through the door. They all seemed 
to be looking at me. 

My appearance must have been sufficient to have 
shocked them. I was hatless and my hair was matted 
with blood. The red-stained bandage around my fore- 
head and extending down over my left cheek did not 
hide the rest of my face, which was unwashed, and con- 
sequently red with fresh blood. 

On my left side I was completely bare from the shoul- 
der to the waist with the exception of the strips of white- 
cloth about my arm and shoulder. My chest was splashed 
with red from the two body wounds. Such was my en- 



328 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

trance. I must have looked somewhat grewsome because 
I happened to catch an involuntary shudder as it passed 
over the face of one of my observers among the walking 
wounded and I heard him remark to the man next to 
him: 

"My God, look what they're bringing in." 

Hartzell placed me on a stretcher on the floor and 
went for water, which I sorely needed. I heard some 
one stop beside my stretcher and bend over me, while 
a kindly voice said : 

"Would you like a cigarette, old man?'* 

"Yes," I replied. He lighted one in his own lips 
and placed it in my mouth. I wanted to know my bene- 
factor. I asked him for his name and organisation. 

"I am not a soldier," he said; "I am a non-combatant, 
the same as you. My name is Slater and Vm from the 
Y. M. C A." 

That cigarette tasted mighty good. If you who read 
this are one of those whose contributions to the Y. M. 
C A. made that distribution possible, I wish to herewith 
express to you my gratefulness and the gratefulness 
of the other men who enjoyed your generosity that 
night. 

In front of what had been the altar in the church, 
there had been erected a rudely constructed operation 
table. The table was surrounded with tall candelabrum . 
of brass and gilded wood. These ornate accessories had! 
been removed from the altar for the purpose of provid-j 
ing better light for the surgeons who busied themselves 1 
about the table in their long gowns of white — stained 
with red. 

I was placed on that table for an examination and I 
heard a peculiar conversation going on about me. One 
doctor said, "We haven't any more of it." Then an- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 329 

other doctor said, *'But I thought we had plenty." The 
first voice replied, "Yes, but we didn't expect so many 
wounded. We have used up all we had." Then the 
second voice said, "Well, we certainly need it now. I 
don't know what we're going to do without it." 

From their further conversation I learned that the 
subject under discussion was anti-tetanus serum — the 
all-important inoculation that prevents lockjaw and is 
also an antidote for the germs of gas gangrene. You 
may be sure I became more than mildly interested in the 
absence of this valuable boon, but there was nothing I 
could say that would help the case, so I remained quiet. In 
several minutes my composure was rewarded. I heard 
hurried footsteps across the flagstoned flooring and a 
minute later felt a steel needle penetrating my abdomen. 
Then a cheery voice said : 

"It's all right, now, we've got plenty of it. We've 
got just piles of it. The Red Cross just shot it out from 
Paris in limousines." 

After the injection Hartzell informed me that the 
doctors could do nothing for me at that place and that 
I was to be moved further to the rear. He said ambu- 
lances were scarce but he had found a place for me in a 
returning ammunition truck. I was carried out of the 
church and somewhere in the outer darkness was lifted 
up into the body of the truck and laid down on some straw 
in the bottom. There were some fifteen or twenty other 
men lying there beside me. 

The jolting in this springless vehicle was severe, but 
its severity was relieved in some of our cases by the quiet- 
ing injections we had received. The effects of these nar- 
cotics had worn off in some of the men and they suffered 
the worse for it. One of them continually called out 



330 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

to the truck driver to go slower and make less jolting. 
To each request the driver responded that he was going 
as slow as he could. As the jolting continued the man 
with the complaining nerves finally yelled out a new 
request. He said: 

"Well, if you can't make it easier by going slow, then 
for God's sake throw her into high and go as fast as you 
can. Let's get it over as quick as we can." 

Lying on my back in the truck with a raincoat as a 
pillow, I began to wonder where we were bound for. 
I opened my eye once and looked up toward the roof of 
the leafy tunnel which covered the road. Soon we passed 
out from beneath the trees bordering the roadside and 
I could see the sky above. The moon was out and 
there were lots of stars. They gave one something to 
think about. After all, how insignificant was one little 
life. 

In this mood, something in the jolting of the camion , 
brought to my mind the metre and words of George | 
Amicks' wistful verses, "The Camion Caravan," and I 
repeat it from memory: 

"Winding down through sleeping town 
Pale stars of early dawn; 
Like ancient knight with squire by side. 
Driver and helper now we ride — 
The camion caravan. 

"In between the rows of trees 

Glare of the mid-day sun; 
Creeping along the highway wide. 
Slowly in long defile, we ride — 

The camion caravan. 



ii 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 331 

"Homeward to remorque and rest. 

Pale stars of early night; 
Through stillness of the eventide, 
Back through the winding town we ride — 

The camion caravan." 

Sometime during the dark hours of the early morning 
we stopped in the courtyard of a hospital and I was taken 
into another examination room illuminated with pain- 
fully brilliant lights. I was placed on a table for an 
examination, which seemed rather hurried, and then the 
table was rolled away some distance down a corridor. 
I never understood that move until some weeks later 
when a Lieutenant medical officer told me that it was he 
who had examined me at that place. 

"You're looking pretty fit, now," he said, **but that 
night when I saw you I ticketed you for the dead pile. 
You didn't look like you could live till morning." 

His statement gave me some satisfaction. There is 
always joy in fooling the doctor. 

Hartzell, who still accompanied me, apparently res- 
cued me from the ''dead pile" and we started on another 
motor trip, this time on a stretcher in a large, easier- 
riding ambulance. In this I arrived shortly after dawn 
at the United States Military Base Hospital at Neuilly- 
sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris. 

There were more hurried examinations and soon I 
was rolled down a corridor on a wheeled table, into an 
elevator that started upward. Then the wheeled table 
raced down another long corridor and I began to feel 
that my journey ings were endless. We stopped finally 
in a room where I distinctly caught the odour of ether. 
Some one began removing my boots and clothes. As 
that some one worked he talked to me. 



332 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"I know you, Mr. Gibbons," he said. "I'm from Chi- 
cago also. I am Sergeant Stephen Hayes. I used to go 
to Hyde Park High School. We're going to fix you up 
right away." 

I learned from Hayes that I was lying in a room ad- 
joining the operating chamber and was being prepared 
for the operating table. Some information concerning 
the extent of my injuries and the purpose of the opera- 
tion would have been comforting and would have relieved 
the sensation of utter helpless childishness that I was 
experiencing. 

I knew I was about to go under the influence of 
the anesthetic and that something was going to be done 
to me. I had every confidence that whatever was done 
would be for the best but it was perfectly natural that I 
should be curious about it. Was the operation to be 
a serious one or a minor one? Would they have to re- 
move my eye ? Would they have to operate on my skull ? 
How about the arm? Would there be an amputation? 
How about the other eye? Would I ever see again? 
It must be remembered that in spite of all the examina- 
tions I had not been informed and consequently had no 
knowledge concerning the extent of my injuries. The 
only information I had received had been included in 
vague remarks intended as soothing, such as "You're all 
right, old man." "You'll pull through fine." "You're 
coming along nicely." But all of it had seemed too pro- 
fessionally optimistic to satisfy me and my doubts still 
remained. 

They were relieved, however, by the pressure of a hand 
and the sound of a voice. In the words spoken and in 
the pressure of the hand, there was hardly anything dif- 
ferent from similar hand pressures and similar spoken 
phrases that had come to me during the night, yet there 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 333 

was everything different. This voice and this hand car- 
ried supreme confidence. I could believe in both of them. 
I felt the hand pressure on my right shoulder and the 
mild kindly voice said: 

"Son, I am going to operate on you. I have examined 
you and you are all right. You are going to come 
through fine. Don't worry about anything.'* 

"Thank you, very much," I said, "I like your voice. 
It sounds like my father's. Will you tell me your name?" 

"I am Major Powers," the kindly voice said. "Now 
just take it easy, and I will talk to you again in a couple 
of hours when you feel better." 

The speaker, as I learned later, was Major Charles 
Powers, of Denver, Colorado, one of the best-known and 
best-loved surgeons in the West. A man far advanced 
in his profession and well advanced in his years, a man 
whose life has not been one of continual health, a man 
who, upon America's entry of the war, sacrificed the 
safety of the beneficial air rarity of his native Denver 
to answer the country's call, to go to France at great 
personal risk to his health — a risk only appreciated by 
those who know him well. It was Major Powers who 
operated upon the compound fracture in my skull that 
morning. 

My mental note-taking continued as the anesthetist 
worked over me with the ether. As I began breathing 
the fumes I remember that my senses were keenly mak- 
ing observations on every sensation I experienced. The 
thought even went through my mind that it would be 
rather an unusual thing to report completely the im- 
pressions of coma. This suggestion became a deter- 
mination and I became keyed up to everything going on 
about me. 

The conversation of the young doctor who was ad' 



334 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

ministering the anesthetic interested me unusually. He 
was very busy and business-like and although I con- 
sidered myself an important and most interested party 
in the entire proceedings, his conversation ignored me 
entirely. He not only did not talk to me, but he was not 
even talking about me. As he continued to apply the 
ether, he kept up a running fire of entirely extraneous 
remarks with some other person near the table. I did 
not appreciate then, as I do now, that I was only one 
of very, very many that he had anesthetised that morn- 
ing and the night before, but at the time his seeming lack 
of all interest in me as me, piqued me considerably. 

"Are you feeling my pulse?" I said. I could not 
feel his hand on either of my wrists, but I asked the 
question principally to inject myself into the conversa- 
tion in some way or other, preferably in some way that 
would call him to account, as I had by this time aroused 
within me a keen and healthy dislike for this busy little 
worker whom I could not see but who stood over me 
and carried on conversations with other people to my 
utter and complete exclusion. And all the time he was 
engaged in feeding me the fumes that I knew would soon 
steal away my senses. 

"Now, never you mind about your pulse," he re- 
plied somewhat peevishly. "I'm taking care of this." 
It seemed to me from the tone of his voice that he im- 
plied I was talking about something that was none of 
my business and I had the distinct conviction that if 
the proceedings were anybody's business, they certainly 
were mine. 

"You will pardon me for manifesting a mild interest 
in what you are doing to me," I said, "but you see I 
know that something is going to be done to my right 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 335 

eye and inasmuch as that is the only eye I've got on that 
side, I can't help being concerned." 

''Now, you just forget it and take deep breaths, and 
say, Charlie, did you see that case over in Ward 62? 
That was a wonderful case. The bullet hit the man in 
the head and they took the lead out of his stomach. 
He's got the bullet on the table beside him now. Talk 
about bullet eaters — believe me, those Marines sure are." 

I hurled myself back into the conversation. 

"I'll take deep breaths if you'll loosen the straps over 
my chest," I said, getting madder each minute. "How 
can I take a full breath when you've got my lungs 
strapped down?" 

"Well, how's that?" responded the conversational 
anesthetist, as he loosened one of the straps. "Now, 
take one breath of fresh air — one deep, long breath, 
now." 

I turned my head to one side to escape the fumes from 
the stifling towel over my face and made a frenzied gulp 
for fresh air. As I did so, one large drop of ether fell 
on the table right in front of my nose and the deep 
long breath I got had very little air in it. I felt I had 
been tricked. 

"You're pretty cute, old timer, aren't you?" I re- 
marked to the anesthetist for the purpose of letting him 
know that I was on to his game, but either he didn't 
hear me, or he was too interested in telling Charlie about 
his hopes and ambitions to be sent to the front with a 
medical unit that worked under range of the guns. He 
returned to a consideration of me with the following 
remark : 

"All right, he's under now; where's the next one?" 

"The hell I am," I responded hastily, as visions of 
knives and saws and gimlets and brain chisels went 



336 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

through my mind. I had no intention or desire of being 
conscious when the carpenters and plumbers started to 
work on me. 

I was completely ignored and the table started moving. 
We rolled across the floor and there commenced a click- 
ing under the back of my head, not unlike the sound made 
when the barber lowers or elevates the head-rest on his 
chair. The table rolled seemingly a long distance down 
a long corridor and then came to the top of a slanting 
runway. 

As I started riding the table down the runway I began 
to see that I was descending an inclined tube which 
seemed to be filled with yellow vapour. Some distance 
down, the table slowed up and we came to a stop in 
front of a circular bulkhead in the tunnel. 

There was a door in the centre of the bulkhead and 
in the centre of the door there was a small wicket win- 
dow which opened and two grotesquely smiling eyes 
peered out at me. Those eyes inspected me from head 
to foot and then, apparently satisfied, they twinkled and 
the wicket closed with a snap. Then the door opened 
and out stepped a quaint and curious figure with gnarled 
limbs and arms and a peculiar misshapen head, com- 
pletely covered with a short growth of black hair. 

I laughed outright, laughed hilariously. I recognised 
the man. The last time I had seen him was when he 
stepped out of a gas tank on the i8th floor of an office 
building in Chicago where I was reclining at the time 
in a dentist chair. He was the little gas demon who 
walked with me through the Elysian fields the last time 
I had a tooth pulled. 

''Well you poor little son-of-a-gun," I said, by way of 
greeting. ''What are you doing way over here in 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 337 

France ? I haven't seen you for almost two years, since 
that day back in Chicago." 

The gas demon rolled his head from one side to the 
other and smiled, but I can't remember what he said. 
My mental note-taking concluded about there because 
the next memory I have is of complete darkness, and ly- 
ing on my back in a cramped position while a horse 
trampled on my left arm. 

"Back off of there," I shouted, but the animal's hoofs 
didn't move. The only effect my shouting had was 
to bring a soft hand into my right one, and a sweet 
voice close beside me. 

"You're all right, now," said the sweet voice, "just 
try to take a little nap and you'll feel better." 

Then I knew it was all over, that is, the operation was 
over, or something was over. Anyhow my mind was 
working and I was in a position where I wanted to know 
things again. I recall now, with a smile, that the first 
things that passed through my mind were the threadbare 
bromides so often quoted "Where am I?" I recall feel- 
ing the urge to say something at least original, so I 
enquired : 

"What place is this, and will you please tell me what 
day and time it is?" 

"This is the Military Base Hospital at Neuilly-sur- 
Seine just on the outskirts of Paris, and it is about 
eleven o'clock in the morning and to-day is Friday, June 
the seventh." 

Then I went back to sleep with an etherised taste in 
my mouth like a motorman's glove. 



338 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

CHAPTER XVIII 

GROANSt LAUGHS AND SOBS IN THE HOSPITAL 

There were fourteen wounded American soldiers in 
my ward — all men from the ranks and representing 
almost as many nationalistic extractions. There was an 
Irishman, a Swede, an Italian, a Jew, a Pole, one man 
of German parentage, and one man of Russian extrac- 
tion. All of them had been wounded at the front and 
all of them now had something nearer and dearer to them 
than any traditions that might have been handed down to 
them from a mother country — they had fought and 
bled and suffered for a new country, their new country. 

Here in this ward was the new melting pot of America. 
Not the melting pot of our great American cities where 
nationalistic quarters still exist, but a greater fusion 
process from which these men had emerged with un- 
questionable Americanism. They are the real and the 
new Americans — born in the hell of battle. 

One night as we lay there, we heard an automobile 
racing through a street in this sleepy; warm little 
faubourg of Paris. The motor was sounding on its 
siren a call that was familiar to all of us. It was the 
alarm of a night attack from the air. It meant that 
German planes had crossed the front line and were on 
iheir way with death and destructioi; ,^or Paris. 

A nurse entered the room and drew the curtains of 
the tall windows to keep from our eyes the flash and the 
glitter of the shells that soon began to burst in the sky 
above us as the aerial defences located on the outer circle 
of the city began to erect a wall of bursting steel around 



^' ' WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 339 

the French capital. We could hear the guns barking 
close by and occasionally the louder boom that told us 
one of the German bombs had landed. Particles of 
shrapnel began falling in the garden beneath the windows 
of our ward and we could hear the rattle of the pieces 
on the slate roof of a pavilion there. It is most un- 
pleasant, it goes without saying, to lie helpless on one*s 
back and grapple with the realisation that directly over 
your head — right straight above your eyes and face — 
is an enemy airplane loaded with bombs. Many of us 
knew that those bombs contained, some of them, more 
than two hundred pounds of melilite and some of us 
had witnessed the terrific havoc they wrought when they 
landed on a building. All of us knew, as the world 
knows, the particular attraction that hospitals have for 
German bombs. 

The aerial bombardment subsided after some ten or 
fifteen minutes and soon we heard the motor racing back 
through the streets while a musician in the car sounded 
on a bugle the ^'prologue" or the signal that the raid 
was over. The invaders had been driven back. All of 
us in the ward tried to sleep. But nerves tingled from 
this more or less uncomfortable experience and wounds 
ached and burned. Sleep was almost out of the ques- 
tion, and in the darkened ward I soon noticed the red 
glow of cigarette after cigarette from bed to bed as the 
men sought to woo relief with tobacco smoke. 

We began to discuss a subject very near and very dear 
to all wounded men. That is, what they are going to 
do as soon as they get out of the hospital. It is known, 
of course, that the first consideration usually is, to re- 
turn to the front, but in many instances in our ward, 
this was entirely out of the question. 

So it was with Dan Bailey who occupied a bed two 



340 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

beds on my right. His left leg was off above the knee. 
He lost it going over the top at Cantigny. 

"I know what I'm going to do when I get home/' he 
said, "I am going to get a job as an instructor in a 
roller skating rink." 

In a bed on the other side of the ward was a young 
man with his right arm off. His name was Johnson 
and he had been a musician. In time of battle, musicians 
lay aside their trombones and cornets and go over the 
top with the men, only they carry stretchers instead of 
rifles. Johnson had done this. Something had ex- 
ploded quite close to him and his entire recollection of 
the battle was that he had awakened being carried back 
on his own stretcher. 

"I know where I can sure get work," he said, glanc- 
ing down at the stump of his lost arm. '1 am going to 
sign up as a pitcher with the St. Louis Nationals." 

Days later when I looked on Johnson for the first time, 
I asked him if he wasn't Irish, and he said no. Then 
I asked him where he lost his arm and he replied, **At 
the yoint." And then I knew where he came from. 

But concerning after-the-war occupations, I en- 
deavoured that night to contribute something in a similar 
vein to the general discussion, and I suggested the pos- 
sibility that I might return to give lessons on the monocle. 

The prize prospect, however, was submitted by a man 
who occupied a bed far over in one comer of the room. 
He was the possessor of a polysyllabic name — a name 
sprinkled with k's, s's and z's, with a scarcity of vowels 
— a name that we could not pronounce, much less re- 
member. On account of his size we called him "Big 
Boy." His was a pecuHar story. 

He had been captured by three Germans who were 
marching him back to their line. In telling me the story 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 341 

Big Boy said, "Mr. Gibbons, I made up my mind as I 
walked back with them that I might just as well be dead 
as to spend the rest of the war studying German." 

So he had struck the man on the right and the one on 
the left and had downed both of them, but the German 
in back of him, got him with the bayonet. A nerve 
centre in his back was severed by the slash of the steel 
that extended almost from one shoulder to the other, and 
Big Boy had fallen to the ground, his arms and legs 
powerless. Then the German with the bayonet robbed 
him. Big Boy enumerated the loss to me, — fifty-three 
dollars and his girl's picture. 

Although paralysed and helpless, there was nothing 
down in the mouth about Big Boy — indeed, he provided 
most of the fun in the ward. He had an idea all of 
his own about what he was going to do after the war 
and he let us know about it that night. 

"All of you guys have told what you're going to do," 
he said, "now I'm going to tell you the truth. Fm going 
back to that little town of mine in Ohio and go down 
to the grocery store and sit there on a soap box on the 
porch. 

"Then I'm going to gather all the little boys in the 
neighbourhood round about me and then I'm going to 
outlie the G. A. R." 

There was one thing in that ward that nobody could lie 
about and that was the twitches of pain we suffered in 
the mornings when the old dressings of the day before 
were changed and new ones applied. 

The doctor and his woman assistant who had charge 
of the surgical dressings on that corridor would arrive 
in the ward shortly after breakfast. They would be 
wheeling in front of them a rubber-tired, white-enamelled 
vehicle on which were piled the jars of antiseptic gauze 



/ 



\ 
\ 
\ 



342 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and trays of nickel-plated instruments, which both the 
doctor and his assistant would handle with rubber-gloved 
hands. In our ward that vehicle was known as the 
"Agony Cart," and every time it stopped at the foot of 
a bed you would be pretty sure to hear a groan or a stifled 
wail in a few minutes. 

We had various ways of expressing or suppressing the 
pain. You who have had a particularly vicious mustard 
plaster jerked off that tender spot in the back, right 
between the shoulders, have some small conception of 
the delicate sensation that accompanies the removal of old 
gauze from a healing wound. 

Some of the men would grit their teeth and grunt, 
others would put their wrists in their mouths and bite 
themselves during the operation. Some others would 
try to keep talking to the doctor or the nurse while the 
ordeal was in progress and others would just simply 
shout. There was little satisfaction to be gained from 
these expressions of pain because while one man was 
yelling the other thirteen in the ward were shouting with 
glee and chaffing him, and as soon as his wounds had 
been redressed he would join in the laughs at the expense 
of those who followed him. 

There was a Jewish boy in the ward and he had a par- 
ticularly painful shell wound in his right leg. He was 
plucky about the painful treatment and used to say to 
the doctor, "Don't mind me yeUing, doc. I can't help it, ^ 
but you just keep right on." ml 

The Jew boy's cry of pain as near as I can reproduce ^ 
it went something like this, "Oy! Oy!! Oy!!! YOY!!! 
Doctor!" 

The Jew boy's clear-toned enunciation of this Yiddish 
lullaby, as the rest of the ward called it, brought many 
a heartless, fiendish laugh from the occupants of the 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 343 

other beds. We almost lost one of our patients on 
account of that laugh. He nearly laughed himself to 
death — in fact. 

This near victim of uncontrollable risibilities was an 
ItaHan boy from the East Side of New York. A piece 
of shrapnel had penetrated one of his lungs and pleurisy 
had developed in the other one. It had become neces- 
sary to operate on one of the lungs and tape it down. 
The boy had to do his best to breathe with one lung that 
was affected by pleurisy. Every breath was like the 
stab of a knife and it was quite natural that the patient 
would be peevish and garrulous. The whole ward called 
him the *'dying Wop." But his name was Frank. 

When the Jew boy would run the scale with his torture 
cry, the "dying Wop" would be forced to forget his 
laboured breathing and give vent to laughter. These 
almost fatal laughs sounded something like this: 

"He! Hee!! Hee!!! (on a rising inflection and then 
much softer) Oh, Oh, Oh! Stop him, stop him, stop 
him!" The "He-Hee's" were laughs, but the "Oh-oh's" 
were excruciating pain. 

Frank grew steadily worse and had to be removed 
from the ward. Weeks afterward I went back to see 
him and found him much thinner and considerably 
weaker. He occupied a bed on one of the pavilions in 
the garden. He was still breathing out of that one 
lung and between gasps he told me that six men had 
died in the bed next to him. Then he smiled up at 
me with a look in his eyes that seemed to say, "But 
they haven't croaked the 'dying Wop' yet." 

"This here — hospital stuff " Frank told me slowly, 

and between gasps, "is the big fight after all. I know — 
I am fighting here — against death — and am going to win 
.out, too. 



344 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

"I'm going to win out even though it is harder tc 
fight — than fighting — the Germans — up front. We Ital- 
ians Hcked Hell out of them — a million years ago. Old 
General Caesar did it and he used to bring them back 
to Rome and put 'em in white-wing suits on the streets.** 

For all his quaint knowledge of Caesar's successes 
against the progenitors of Kulturland of to-day, Frank 
was all American. Here was a rough-cut young Ameri- 
can from the streets of New York's Little Italy. Here 
was a man who had almost made the supreme sacrifice. 
Here was a man who, if he did escape death, faced long 
weakened years ahead. It occurred to me that I would 
like to know, that it would be interesting to know, in 
what opinion this wounded American soldier, the son 
of uneducated immigrant parents, would hold the Chief 
Executive of the United States, the man he would most 
likely personify as responsible for the events that led 
up to his being wounded on the battlefield. 

"Frank," I asked, "what do you think about the Presi- 
dent of the United States ?" 

He seemed to be considering for a minute, or maybe 
he was only waiting to gather sufficient breath to make 
an answer. He had been lying with his eyes directed 
steadfastly toward the ceiling. Now he turned his face 
slowly toward me. - His eyes, sunken slightly in their 
sockets, shone fevenshly. His pinched, hollow cheeks 
were still swarthy, bu' the^ackground of the white pil- 
low made them look wan "^ Slowly he moistened his lips, 
and then he said : 

"Say — say — that guy — that guy's — got hair — on his 
chest." 

That was the opinion of the "dying Wop." 

After Frank's removal from our ward, the rest of us 
frequently sent messages of cheer down to him. These 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 345 

messages were usually carried by a young American 
woman who had a particular interest in our ward. Not 
strange to say, she had donned a Red Cross nursing 
uniform on the same day that most of us arrived in that 
ward. She was one of the American women who 
brought us fruit, ice cream, candy and cigarettes. She 
wrote letters for us to our mothers. She worked long 
hours, night and day, for us. In her absence, one day, 
the ward went into session and voted her its guardian 
angel. Out of modesty, I was forced to answer "Pres- 
ent" instead of "Aye" to the roll-call. The Angel was 
and is my wife. 

As Official Ward Angel it was among the wife's duties 
to handle the matter of visitors, of which there were 
many. It seemed, during those early days in June, that 
every American woman in France dropped whatever war 
work she was doing and rushed to the American hospitals 
to be of whatever service she could. And it was not 
easy work these women accomplished. There was very 
little "forehead-rubbing" or "moving picture nursing." 
Much of it was tile corridor scrubbing and pan cleaning. 
They stopped at no tasks they were called upon to per- 
form. Many of them worked themselves sick during 
the long hours of that rush period. 

Sometimes the willingness, eagerness and sympathy 
of some of the visitors produced humourous little inci- 
dents in our hospital life. Nearly all of the women en- 
tering our ward would stop at the foot of "Big Boy's" 
bed. They would learn of his paralysed condition from 
the chart attached to the foot of the bed. Then they 
would mournfully shake their heads and slowly pro- 
nounce the words "Poor boy." 

And above all things in the world distasteful to Big 
Boy was that one expression "Poor boy" because as 



I 



346 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

soon as the kindly intentioned women would leave the 
room, the rest of the ward would take up the "Poor boy" 
chorus until Big Boy got sick of it. Usually, however, 
before leaving the ward the woman visitor would take 
from a cluster of flowers on her arm, one large red rose 
and this she would solemnly desposit on Big Boy's de- 
fenceless chest. 

Big Boy would smile up to her a look which she would 
accept and interpret as one of deep, undying gratitude. 
The kindly-intentioned one surrounding herself with 
that benediction that is derived from a sacred duty well 
performed, would walk slowly from the room and as 
the door would close behind her. Big Boy's gruff drawl- 
ing voice would sing out in a call for the orderly. 

"Dan, remove the funeral decorations," he would 
order. 

Dan Sullivan, our orderly, was the busiest man in 
the hospital. Big Boy liked to smoke, but, being para- 
lysed, he required assistance. At regular intervals dur- 
ing the day the ward room door, which was close to Big 
Boy's bed, would open slowly and through the gap four 
or six inches wide the rest of the ward would get a 
glimpse of Dan standing in the opening with his arms 
piled high with pots and utensils, and a cigarette hanging 
from the corner of his mouth. 

With one hand he would extract the cigarette, insert 
hand and arm through the opening in the door until it 
hovered above Big Boy's face. Then the hand would 
descend and the cigarette would be inserted in Big Boy's 
mouth just as you would stick a pin in a pin-cushion. 
Big Boy would lie back comfortably and puff away like 
a Mississippi steamboat for four or five minutes and 
then the door would open just a crack again, the mysteri- 
ous hand and arm would reach in once more and the 




THE NEWS FROM THE STATES 




SMILING WOUNDED AMERICAN SOLDIERS 



I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 347 

cigarette would be plucked out. That was the way Big 
Boy got his ''smokes." 

If Big Boy's voice was gruff, there was still a gruffer 
voice that used to come from a man in the corner of 
the ward to the left of my bed. During the first four 
or five days I was an inmate of the ward, I was most 
interested m all the voices I heard because I lay in total 
darkness. The bandages extended down from the top of 
my head to my upper lip, and I did not know whether or 
not I ever would see again. I would listen carefully to 
all remarks within ear-shot, whether they be from doc- 
tors, nurses or patients. I listened in the hope that from 
them I might learn whether or not there was a possibility 
of my regaining vision. But all of their remarks with 
regard to my condition were ambiguous and unsatisfac- 
tory. But from this I gained a listening habit and that 
was how I became particularly interested in the very 
gruff voice that came from the corner on my left. 

Other patients directing remarks into that corner would 
address them to a man whom they would call by name 
**Red Shannahan." I was quick to connect the gruff 
voice and the name ''Red Shannahan," and as I had 
lots of time and nothing else to do, I built up in my 
mind's eye a picture of a tall, husky, rough and ready, 
tough Irishman, with red hair — a man of whom it 
would be conceivable that he had wiped out some two 
or three German regiments before they got him. To find 
out more about this character, I called over to him one 
day. 

"Red Shannahan, are you there?" I said. 

"Yes, Mr. Gibbons, I'm here," came the reply, and I 
was immensely surprised because it was not the gruff voice 
at all. It was the mild, unchanged voice of a boy, a boy 
whose tones were still in the upper register. The reply 



348 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

seemed almost girlish in comparison with the gruffer 
tones of the other patients and I marvelled that the owner 
of this polite, mannerly, high-pitched voice could be 
known by any such name as **Red Shannahan." I deter- 
mined upon further investigation. 

*'Red Shannahan, what work did you do before you 
became a United States soldier?" I asked. 

''Mr. Gibbons," came the reply, almost girlishly, '*I 
am from Baltimore. I drove the wagon for Mr. Bishop, 
the canary bird and gold fish man." 

All that had happened to this canary bird fancier and 
gold fish tamer was that he had killed two Germans and 
captured three before they got him. 

Among those who came to visit us in that ward, there 
appeared one day a man I had not seen in many years. 
When I knew him last he had been a sport-loving fellow- 
student of mine at college and one of the fastest, hard- 
est-fighting ends our 'Varsity football squad ever had. 
Knowing this disposition of the man, I was quite sur- 
prised to see on the sleeve of his khaki service uniform 
the red shield and insignia of the Knights of Columbus. 

I was well aware of the very valuable work done by 
this institution wherever American soldiers are in France, 
but I could not imagine this former college chum of 
mine being engaged in such work instead of being in 
the service. He noticed my silence and he said, "Gib, 
do you remember that game with the Indians on 
Thanksgiving Day?" 

"Yes," I replied, "they hurt your leg that day." 

"Yes," replied my old college mate, whom we might 
as well call MacDougal inasmuch as that was not his 
name. "Yes, they took that leg away from me three 
years later." 

I knew then why MacDougal was with the K. C and 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 349 

I wondered what service he would perform in our ward 
in the name of his organisation. I soon found out. 
Without introduction, MacDougal proceeded to the bed- 
side of Dan Bailey, the Infantryman with one leg off, 
who was lying in a bed on my right. MacDougal walked 
back and forth two or three times past the foot of 
Bailey's bed. 

''How does that look?" he said to Bailey. "Do I 
walk all right?" 

''Looks all right to me," replied Bailey; "what's the 
matter with you?" 

McDougal then began jumping, skipping and hopping 
up and down and across the floor at the foot of Bailey's 
bed. Finishing these exercises breathlessly, he again ad- 
dressed himself to the sufferer with one leg. 

"How did that look?" he said. "Did that look all 
right?" 

"I don't see anything the matter with you," replied 
Bailey, "unless it is that you're in the wrong ward." 

Then MacDougal stood close by Bailey's bedside where 
the boy with one leg could watch him closely. Mac- 
Dougal took his cane and struck his own right leg a 
resounding whack. And we all knew by the sound of 
the blow that the leg he struck was wooden. 

In that peculiar way did MacDougal bring into the 
life of Dan Bailey new interest and new prospects. He 
proved to Dan Bailey that for the rest of his life Dart 
Bailey with an artificial limb could walk about and jump 
and skip and hop almost as well as people with two 
good legs. That was the service performed by the 
Knights of Columbus in our ward. 

There was one other organisation in that hospital that 
deserves mention. It was the most exclusive little clique 
and rather inclined towards snobbishness. I was a mem- 



350 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

ber of it. We used to look down on the ordinary- 
wounded cases that had two eyes. We enjoyed, either 
rightly or wrongly, a feeling of superiority. Death 
comes mighty close when it nicks an eye out of your 
head. All of the one-eyed cases and some of the no- 
eyed cases received attention in one certain ward, and it 
was to this ward after my release from the hospital that 
I used to go every day for fresh dressings for my 
wounds. Every time I entered the ward a delegation 
of one-eyed would greet me as a comrade and present 
me with a petition. In this petition I was asked and 
urged to betake myself to the hospital library, to probe 
the depths of the encyclopaedias and from their wordy 
innards tear out one name for the organisation of the 
one-eyed. This was to be our life long club, they said, 
and the insistence was that the name above all should 
be a "classy" name. So it came to pass that after much 
research and debate one name was accepted and from that 
time on we became known as the Cyclops Club. 

A wonderful Philadelphia surgeon was in charge of 
the work in that ward. Hundreds of American soldiers 
for long years after the war will thank him for seeing. 
I thank him for my sight now. His name is Dr. Fewell. 
The greatest excitement in the ward prevailed one day 
when one of the doctor's assistants entered carrying 
several flat, hard wood cases, each of them about a yard 
square. The cases opened like a book and were laid flat 
on the table. Their interiors were lined with green vel- 
vet and there on the shallow receptacles in the green 
velvet were just dozens of eyes, gleaming unblinkingly 
up at us. 

A shout went up and down the ward and the Cyclo- 
pians gathered around the table. There was a grand 



I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 351 

grab right and left. Everybody tried to get a handful. 
There was some difficulty reassorting the grabs. Of 
course, it happened, that fellows that really needed blue 
or grey ones, managed to get hold of black ones or 
brown ones, and some confusion existed while they 
traded back and forth to match up proper colours, shades 
and sizes. 

One Cyclopian was not in on the grab. In addition 
to having lost one eye, he had received about a pound 
and a half of assorted hardware in his back, and these 
flesh wounds confined him to his bed. He had been 
sleeping and he suddenly awoke during the distribution 
of the glassware. He apparently became alarmed with 
the thought that he was going to be left out of considera- 
tion. I saw him sit bolt upright in bed as he shouted 
clear across the ward : 

"Hey, Doc, pass the grapes." 

When it became possible for me to leave that hospital, 
I went to another one three blocks away. This was 
a remarkable institution that had been maintained by 
wealthy Americans living in France before the war. I 
was assigned to a room on the third floor — a room ad- 
joining a sun parlour, overlooking a beautiful Old World 
garden with a lagoon, rustic bridges, trees and shrubbery. 

In early June, when that flood of American wounded 
had come back from the Marne, it had become necessary 
to erect hospital ward tents in the garden and there a 
number of our wounded were cared for. I used to 
notice that every day two orderlies would carry out from 
one of the small tents a small white cot on which there 
lay an American soldier. They would place the cot 
on the green grass where the sunlight, finding its way 
through the leafy branches of the tree, would shine dowia 



352 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

upon the form of this young — this very young — fighter 
from the U. S. A. 

He was just two months over seventeen years of age. 
He had deHberately and patriotically lied one year on 
his age in order that he might go to France and fight 
beneath our flag. 

He was wounded, but his appearance did not indicate 
how badly. There were no bandages about his head, 
arms or body. There was nothing to suggest the sever- 
ity of his injuries — nothing save his small round spot on 
the side of his head where the surgeons had shaved away 
the hair — just a small round spot that marked the place 
where a piece of German hand-grenade had touched the 
skull. 

This little fellow had forgotten everything. He could 
not remember — all had slipped his mind save for the 
three or four lines of one little song, which was the sole 
remaining memory that bridged the gap of four thousand 
miles between him and his home across the sea. 

Over and over again he would sing it all day long as 
he lay there on the cot with the sunlight streaming all 
over him. His sweet boyish voice would come up 
through the leafy branches to the windows of my room. 

I frequently noticed my nurse standing there at the 
window listening to him. Then I would notice that 
her shoulders would shake convulsively and she would 
walk out of the room, wet eyed but silent. And the 
song the little fellow sang was this : 

"Just try to picture me 
Back home in Tennessee, 
Right by my mother's knee 
She thinks the world of me. 
She will be there to meet me 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 353 

With a hug and kiss she'll greet me, 
When I get back, when I get back 
To my home in Tennessee." 

American doctors and American nurses, both by their 
skill and care and tenderness, nursed that little fellow 
back to complete recovery, made him remember every- 
thing and shortly aftei^ward, well and cured, he started 
back, safe and sound, to his home in Tennessee. 

Nothing I can ever say will overstate my estimation 
of the credit that is deserved by our American doctors 
and nurses for the great work they are doing. I am not 
alone in knowing this. I call to witness any Canadian, 
Englishman or Frenchman, that, if he is wounded, when 
in the ambulance, he usually voices one request, "Take 
me to an American hospital." 

I knew of one man who entered that United States 
Military Base Hospital near Paris, with one bullet 
through the shoulder, another through an arm, an eye 
shot out and a compound fracture of the skull, and those 
American doctors and nurses by their attention and 
skil fulness made it possible for him to step back into 
boots and breeches and walk out of the hospital in ten 
days. 

It so happens that I am somewhat familiar with the 
details in that case because I am the man. 



354 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

CHAPTER XIX 

"JULY I 8th" THE TURN OF THE TIDE 

Through the steady growth of Marshal Foch's re- 
serves, by the speedy arrival of American forces, the 
fourth German offensive of 1918, the personally di- 
rected effort launched by the Crown Prince on May 
27th, had been brought to a standstill. 

The German thrust toward Paris had been stopped 
by the Americans at Chateau-Thierry and in the Bois 
de Belleau. It would be an injustice not to record the 
great part played in that fighting by the French Army 
attacked, but it would be equally unjust not to specify 
as the French have gallantly done, that it was the timely 
arrival of American strength that swung the balance 
against the enemy. For the remainder of that month 
of June and up to the middle of July, the fighting was 
considered local in its character. 

The German offensive had succeeded in pushing for- 
ward the enemy front until it formed a loop extending 
southward from the Aisne to the Valley of the Marne. 
This salient was called the Chateau-Thierry pocket. The 
line ran southward from a point east of Soissons to 
Chateau-Thierry, where it touched the Marne, thence 
eastward along both sides of the river to the vicinity of 
Oeuilly where it recrossed the Marne and extended north- 
ward to points beyond Rheims. 

Chateau-Thierry was thus the peak of the German 
push — the apex of the triangle pointing toward Paris. 
The enemy supplied its forces in this peak principally 
by the road that ran southward from Soissons and 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 355 

touched the Mame at Chateau-Thierry. To the west 
of this road and just south of the city of Soissons, is 
the forest of Villers-Cotterets. The enemy occupied the 
northern and eastern limits of the forest and the re- 
mainder of it was in the hands of the French. 

This forest has always been considered one of the sen- 
tinels of Paris. It was located on the right flank of 
the German salient. It was a menace to that flank, and 
offered a most attractive opportunity for an Allied coun- 
ter offensive from that direction. The Germans were 
not unmindful of this. 

The enemy knew that in the forest of Villers-Cot- 
terets it would be possible for Marshal Foch to mobil- 
ise his much-feared reserves by taking advantage of the 
natural screen provided by the forest. That Foch re- 
serve still remained a matter for enemy consideration 
in spite of the fact that the^ successive German offensive 
since March 21st had met with considerable success with 
regard to the acquisition of territory. The Germans, 
however, had been unable to ascertain whether Foch 
had been forced to bring his reserves into the fight. 

The situation demanded a full realisation by the enemy 
of the possible use of this reserve at any time and they 
knew that their lines in Villers-Cotterets Forest offered 
an ever present invitation for the sudden application of 
this reserve strength. Their lines at that point were 
necessarily weak by the superiority of the Allied posi- 
tion and, as a consequence, the Germans guarded this 
weak spot by holding in reserve behind the line a num- 
ber of divisions of the Prussian Guard. 

For the same reason, the enemy maintained constant 
observation of the French position. Their planes would 
fly over the forest every day taking photographs. They 
€ought to discover any evidences indicating that Foch 



356 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

might be preparing to strike a blow from that place. 
They made careful note of the traffic along the roads 
through the forest. They maintained a careful watch 
to ascertain whether new ammunition dumps were be- 
ing concealed under the trees. Their observers tried to 
ascertain whether any additional hospital arrangements 
had been made by the French at that point. Any of 
these things would have indicated that the French were 
preparing to strike through the forest but the Germans 
found nothing to support their suspicions. 

Nevertheless, they maintained their lines at maximum 
strength. A belief existed among the German High 
Command that an attack might be made on July 4th, 
out of consideration to American sentiment. When the 
attack did not develop on that day, they then thought 
that the French might possibly spring the blow on July 
14th, in celebration of their own national fete day. And 
again they were disappointed in their surmises. 

This protracted delay of an impending blow wor- 
ried the enemy. The Germans realised full well that 
they were fighting against time. Their faith in the ca- 
pacity of their submarines to prevent American strength 
from reaching the line, had been abandoned. They now 
knew that every day that passed meant just that many 
more American soldiers arriving in France, and the con- 
sequent strengthening of the Allied forces during a sea- 
son when the Germans, through their repeated offen- 
sives, were suffering terrible losses and were conse- 
quently growing weaker. 

So, on July 14th, when the Allied counter-offensive 
had still failed to materialise, the German forces, by the 
necessity for time, moved to a sudden and faulty de- 
cision. They convinced themselves that they had over- 
estimated the Allied strength. They accepted the be- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 357 

lief that the reason Foch had not attacked was because 
he did not have sufficient strength to attack. With this, 
then, as a basis for their plans, they immediately 
launched another offensive, hoping that this might be 
the one in which they could deliver the final blow. 

This action began on Monday morning, July 15th, 
and extended from Chateau-Thierry eastward along the 
valley of the Marne, northward to Rheims and thence 
eastward. By a remarkable coup, one small patrol of 
French and Americans deprived the enemy of the element 
of surprise in the attack. On the morning of the previ- 
ous day, this patrol successfully raided the enemy lines 
to the east of Rheims and brought back prisoners from 
whom it was learned that the Germans intended strik- 
ing on the following morning. The objectives of the 
offensive were the French cities of fipernay and Chalons. 
The accomplishment of this effort would have placed the 
Rheims salient in the hands of the enemy and brought 
the German lines southward to positions straddling the 
Marne, down the valley of which they would thus be 
able to launch another offensive on a straight road to 
Paris. 

The Germans needed considerable strength for this 
new effort. To muster the shock divisions necessary for 
the attack, they had to weaken their lines elsewhere. 
The first reserves that they drew for this offensive were 
the Prussian Guard divisions which they had been hold- 
ing in readiness in back of the weak spot in their line 
in the Villers-Cotterets Forest. Those divisions were 
hurriedly transported across the base of the V-shaped 
salient and thrown into the attack to the east and the 
southwest of Rheims. 

The Germans found the Allied line prepared to re- 
ceive them. Their attacking waves were mowed down 



358 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

with terrific machine gun fire from French and Amer- 
ican gunners, while at the same time heavy artillery 
barrages played upon the German back areas with deadly 
effect in the massed ranks of the reserves. The fighting 
was particularly vicious. It was destined to be the Ger- 
mans' last action of a grand offensive nature in the en- 
tire war. 

On the line east of Rheims, the German assault was 
particularly strong in one sector where it encountered 
the sturdy ranks of the Rainbow Division of United 
States National Guardsmen, drawn from a dozen or more 
different states in the Union. Regiments from Alabama 
and New York held the front line. Iowa and Ohio were 
close in support. In the support positions, sturdy 
youngsters from Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota 
manned the American artillery. 

The French general commanding the sector had not 
considered it possible that this comparatively small 
American force could withstand the first onslaught of 
the Germans. He had made elaborate plans for a with- 
drawal to high ground two or three miles southward, 
from which he hoped to be able to resist the enemy to 
greater advantage. But all day long, through the 15th 
and the i6th and the 17th of July, those American lines 
held, and the advancing waves of German storm troops 
melted before our guns. Anticipating a renewal of the 
attack on the next day. General Gouraud issued an or- 
der on the evening of July I7th. It read: 

*'To the French and American Soldiers of the Army. 

"We may be attacked from one moment to an- 
other. You all feel that a defensive battle was 
never engaged in under more favourable conditions. 
We are warned, and we are on our guard. We 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 359 

have received strong reinforcements of infantry and 
artillery. You will fight on ground, which, by your 
assiduous labour, you have transformed into a for- 
midable fortress, into a fortress which is invincible 
if the passages are well guarded. 

"The bombardment will be terrible. You will 
en.'lure it without weakness. The attack in a cloud 
of dust and gas will be fierce but your positions and 
your armament are formidable. 

"The strong and brave hearts of free men beat 
in your breast. None will look behind, none will 
give way. Every man will have but one thought 
— 'Kill them, kill them in abundance, until they 
have had enough.' And therefore your General 
tells you it will be a glorious day." 

And so the line held, although the French General had 
in preparation the plans for withdrawal. When, at the 
end of the third day, the American line still occupied 
the same position, the French General found that his 
labour in preparing the plans for withdrawal had been 
for nothing. He is reported to have thrown his hands 
up in the air and remarked, ''There doesn't seem to be 
anything to do but to let the war be fought out where 
the New York Irish and the Alabamans want to fight 
it." 

There was one humorous incident worthy of record in 
that fighting. Great rivalry existed between the New 
York regiment and the Alabama regiment, both of which 
happened to be units of the same brigade. Both the 
New Yorkers and the Alabamans had a mutual hatred 
for the German but, in addition to that, each of them 
was possessed with a mutual dislike for the other. There 
had been frequent clashes of a more or less sportsman- 



36o "AND THEY THOUGHT 

like and fistic nature between men from both of the regi- 
ments. 

On the second day of the fighting, the Germans had 
sent over low-flying airplanes which skimmed the tops 
of our trenches and sprayed them with machine gun 
fire. A man from Alabama, who had grown up from 
childhood with a squirrel rifle under his arm, accom- 
plished something that had never been done before in the 
war. From his position in a trench, he took careful 
aim with his rifle and brought down one of the German 
planes. It was the first time in the history of the West- 
ern Front that a rifleman on the ground had done this. 

When the colonel of the New York regiment heard 
this, he was wild with envy and let it be known that 
there would be trouble brewing unless his regiment at 
least equalled the feat. So, on the following day, an 
Irishman in the ranks stood up and brought one Ger- 
man plane down to the credit of the old Sixty-ninth. 

To the southwest of Rheims, Germans, who succeeded 
in breaking through the lines at one place on the south 
banks of the Marne, encountered American reinforce- 
ments and were annihilated to the number of five thou- 
sand. At no place did the enemy meet with the success 
desired. 

The Germans had launched their attack at six o'clock 
on the morning of July 15th. At Vaux their demon- 
stration was considered a feint, but along the Marne to 
the east of Chateau-Thierry, between Fossy and Mezy, 
the assaulting waves advanced with fury and determina- 
tion. At one place, twenty-five thousand of the enemy 
crossed the river, and the small American forces in front 
of them at that place were forced to retire on Conde-en- 
Bire. In a counter attack, we succeeded in driving fif- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 361 

teen thousand of them back to the north bank, the re- 
maining ten thousand representing casualties with the 
exception of fifteen hundred, who were captured. 

Further eastward, the Germans estabHshed bridge- 
head positions on the south bank of the river at Dormas. 
The enemy enjoyed a minor success in an attack on the 
line near Bligny to the southwest of Rheims, where Ital- 
ian troops fougli^ iV/ith remarkable valour. Everywhere 
else the lines helS solid and upon the close of that first 
night, Marshal l^ocK said, "I am satisfied — Je suis con^ 
tent." 

At dawn the following day, the enemy's futile efforts 
were resumed along the nver east of Chateau-Thierry. 
The Germans suffered appalling losses in their efforts to 
place pontoon bridges at Gland and at Mareuil-le-Port. 
St. Agnan and La Chapelle Monthodon fell into the 
hands of Americans on the same day. 

On the 17th, the enemy's endeavours to reach Festigny 
on both banks of the river came to naught, but to the 
southeast of Rheims, his assaulting waves reached the 
northern limits of Montague Forest. The Germans were 
trying to pinch out the Rheims salient. This was the 
condition of the opposing lines on the night of July 17th, 
— the night that preceded the day on which the tide of 
victory turned for the Allies. 

Foch was now ready to strike. The Allied Com- 
mander-in-Chief had decided to deliver his blow on the 
right flank of the German salient. The line chosen for 
the Allied assault was located between a point south of 
Soissons and Chateau-Thierry. It represented a front 
of some twenty-five miles extending southward from the 
valley of the Aisne to the Marne. Villers-Cotterets 
Forest was the key position for the Allies. 

It was from out that forest that the full strength of 



362 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

the blow was to be delivered. To make the blow effec- 
tive at that most vital point, Marshal Foch needed a 
strong and dependable assaulting force. He needed 
three divisions of the hardest fighting soldiers that he 
could get. He had a considerable army to select from. 
As Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied armies, he was 
in command of all of the British army, all of the French 
army, all of the American army, the Italian, the Bel- 
gian, — all of the military forces of the Allied nations of 
the world. Marshal Foch's command numbered eleven 
million bayonets. 

The Commander-in-Chief had all of these veteran 
fighting men from which he could select the three divi- 
sions necessary to deliver this blow upon which the civ- 
ilisation of the world depended. 

The first division he chose was the Foreign Legion 
of the French army. In four years of bloody fighting, 
the Foreign Legion, composed of soldiers of fortune 
from every country in the world, had never been absent 
in an attack. It had lived up thoroughly to its repU' 
tation as the most fearless unit of shock troops in the 
French army. 

And then for the other two divisions that were needed, 
Marshal Foch selected, from all the eleven million men 
under his command, the First and the Second Regular 
United States Army Divisions. The Second Division 
included the immortal Brigade of United States Ma- 
rines, that had covered themselves with glory in the 
Bois de Belleau. 

It was a great distinction for those two American di- 
visions to have thus been selected to play such a vital 
part in the entire war. It was an honour that every 
officer and man in both divisions felt keenly. 

I have in my map case a torn and much folded little' 



Wt WOULDN'T FIGHT" 363 

piece of paper. I received it that night of July 17th in 
Villers-Cotterets Forest. A similar piece of paper was 
received by every officer in those two American divi- 
sions. To me this piece of paper represents the order 
which resulted in victory for the Allied world. It reads : 

Headquarters Third Army Corps American Expedition- 
ary Forces, 

France, July 17, 19 18 
Memorandum: 

The Third Corps of the American Expeditionary 
Forces has been created and consists of the ist. and 2nd. 
Divisions, two divisions that are known throughout 
France. 

Officers and men of the Third Corps, you have been 
deemed worthy to be placed beside the best veteran 
French troops. See that you prove worthy. Remember 
that in what is now coming you represent the whole 
American nation. 

R. L. BULLARD, 

Major General, 
Commanding 3rd. Corps. 

The German planes flying high over Villers-Cotter- 
ets Forest all day during the 17th, had seen nothing. 
The appearance of all the myriad roads that cross and 
recross the forest in all directions was normal. But that 
night things began to happen in the forest. 

For once at least, the elements were favourable to 
our cause. There was no moon. The night was very 
dark and under the trees the blackness seemed impen- 
etrable. A heavy downpour of rain began and although 
it turned most of the roads into mud, the leafy roof of 
the forest held much of the moisture and offered some 



364 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

protection to the thousands of men who spent the night 
beneath it. Thunder rolled as I had never heard it roll 
in France before. The sound drowned the occasional 
boom of distant cannon. At intervals, terrific crashes 
would be followed by blinding flashes of lightning as 
nature's bolts cut jagged crevices in the sombre sky and 
vented their fury upon some splintered giant of the for- 
est. 

The immediate front was silent — comparatively si- 
lent if one considered the din of the belligerent ele- 
ments. In the opposing front lines in the northern and 
eastern limits of the forest, German and Frenchmen 
alike huddled in their rude shelters to escape the rain. 

Then, along every road leading through the forest to 
the north and to the east, streams of traffic began to 
pour. All of it was moving forward toward the front. 
No traffic bound for the rear was permitted. Every 
inch of available road space was vitally necessary for 
the forces in movement. The roads that usually ac- 
commodated one line of vehicles moving forward and 
one line moving to the rear, now represented two streams 
— solid streams — moving forward. In those streams 
were gun carriages, caissons, limbers, ammunition carts 
and grunting tractors hauling large field pieces. 

In the gutters on either side of the road, long lines of 
American infantry plodded forward through the mud 
and darkness. In the occasional flash of a light, I could 
see that they were equipped for heavy fighting. Many 
of them had their coats off, their sleeves rolled up, while 
beads of sweat stood out on the young faces that shown 
eager beneath the helmets. On their backs they carried, 
in addition to their cumbersome packs, extra shoes and 
extra bandoliers of cartridges. 

From their shoulders were suspended gas masks and 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" 365 

haversacks. Their waists were girded with loaded am- 
munition belts, with bayonet hanging at the left side. 
Some of them wore grenade aprons full of explosives. 
Nearly all of them carried their rifles or machine gun 
parts slung across their backs as they leaned forward un- 
der their burdens and plunged wearily on into the mud 
and darkness, the thunder and lightning, the world des- 
tiny that was before them. Their lines were interspersed 
with long files of plodding mules dragging small, two- 
wheeled, narrow gauge carts loaded down with machine 
gun ammunition. 

Under the trees to either side of the road, there was 
more movement. American engineers struggled for- 
ward through the underbrush carrying, in addition to 
their rifles and belts, rolls of barbed wire, steel posts, 
picks and shovels and axes and saws. Beside them 
marched the swarthy, undersized, bearded veterans of 
the Foreign Legion. Further still under the trees, 
French cavalry, with their lanees slung slantwise across 
their shoulders, rode their horses in and out between the 
giant trunks. 

At road intersections, I saw mighty metal monsters 
with steel plated sides splotched with green and brown 
and red paint. These were the French tanks that were 
to take part in the attack. They groaned and grunted 
on their grinding gears as they manoeuvred about for 
safer progress. In front of each tank there walked a 
man who bore suspended from his shoulders on his back, 
a white towel so that the unseen directing genius in the 
tank's turrent could steer his way through the under- 
brush and crackling saplings that were crushed down 
under the tread of this modern Juggernaut. 

There was no confusion, no outward manifestations 
of excitement. There was no rattle of musketry, shout- 



366 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

ing of commands or waving of swords. Officers ad- 
dressed their men in whispers. There was order and 
quiet save for the roll of thunder and the eternal drip- 
ping of water from the wet leaves, punctuated now and 
then by the ear-splitting crashes that followed each 
nearby flash of lightning. 

Through it all, everything moved. It was a mighty 
mobilisation in the dark. Everything was moving in one 
direction — forward — all with the same goal, all with the 
same urging, all with the same determination, all with 
the same hope. The forest was ghostly with their 
forms. It seemed to me that night in the damp darkness 
of Villers-Cotterets Forest that every tree gave birth to 
a man for France. 

All night long the gathering of that sinister synod con- 
tinued. All night long those furtive forces moved 
through the forest. They passed by every road, by 
every lane, through every avenue of trees. I heard the 
whispered commands of the officers. I heard the slosh- 
ing of the mud under foot and the occasional muf- 
fled curse of some weary marcher who would slip to the 
ground under the weight of his burden; and I knew, all 
of us knew, that at the zero hour, 4:35 o'clock in the 
morning, all hell would land on the German line, and 
these men from the trees would move forward with the 
fate of the world in their hands. 

There was some suspense. We knew that if the Ger- 
mans had had the slightest advance knowledge about that 
mobilisation of Foch's reserves that night, they would 
have responded with a downpour of gas shells, which 
spreading their poisonous fumes under the wet roof of 
the forest, might have spelt slaughter for 70,000 men. 

But the enemy never knew. They never even sus- 
pected. And at the tick of 4:35 A.M., the heavens 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 367 

seemed to crash asunder, as tons and tons of hot metal 
sailed over the forest, bound for the German line. 

That mighty artillery eruption came from a concentra- 
tion of all the guns of all calibres of all the Allies that 
Foch could muster. It was a withering blast and where 
it landed in that edge of the forest occupied by the Ger- 
mans, the quiet of the dripping black night was sud- 
denly turned into a roaring inferno of death. 

Giant tree trunks were blow high into the air and 
splintered into match-wood. Heavy projectiles bearing 
delayed action fuses, penetrated the ground to great 
depth before exploding and then, with the expansion of 
their powerful gases, crushed the enemy dug-outs as if 
they were egg shells. 

Then young America — your sons and your brothers 
and your husbands, shoulder to shoulder with the French 
— went over the top to victory. 

The preliminary barrage moved forward crashing the 
forest down about it. Behind it went the tanks ambling 
awkwardly but irresistibly over all obstructions. Those 
Germans that had not been killed in the first terrific blast, 
came up out of their holes only to face French and 
American bayonets, and the "Kamerad" chorus began 
at once. 

Our assaulting waves moved forward, never hesitat- 
ing, never faltering. Ahead of them were the tanks giv- 
ing special attention to enemy machine gun nests that 
manifested stubbornness. We did not have to charge 
those death-dealing nests that morning as we did in the 
Bois de Belleau. The tanks were there to take care of 
them. One of these would move toward a nest, flirt 
around it several minutes and then politely sit on it. It 
would never be heard from thereafter. 

It was an American whirlwind of fighting fury that 



368 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

swept the Germans in front of it early that morning. 
Aeroplanes had been assigned to hover over the advance 
and make reports on all progress. A dense mist hanging 
over the forest made it impossible for the aviators to 
locate the Divisional Headquarters to v^hich they v^ere 
supposed to make the reports. These dense clouds of 
vapour obscured the earth from the eyes of the airmen, 
but with the rising sun the mists lifted. 

Being but a month out of the hospital and having 
spent a rather strenuous night, I was receiving medical 
attention at daybreak in front of a dressing station not 
far from the headquarters of Major General Harbord 
commanding the Second Division. As I lay there look- 
ing up through the trees, I saw a dark speck diving from 
the sky. Almost immediately I could hear the hum of 
its motors growing momentarily louder as it neared the 
earth. I thought the plane was out of control and ex- 
pected to see it crash to the ground near me. 

Several hundred feet above the tree tops, it flattened 
its wings and went into an easy swoop so that its under- 
gear seemed barely to skim the uppermost branches. 
The machine pursued a course immediately above one 
of the roads. Something dropped from it. It was a 
metal cylinder that glistened in the rays of the morning 
sun. Attached to it was a long streamer of fluttering 
white material. It dropped easily to the ground nearby. 
I saw an American signalman, who had been following 
its descent, pick it up. He opened the metal container 
and extracted the message containing the first aerial ob- 
servations of the advance of the American lines. It 
stated that large numbers of prisoners had been cap- 
tured and were bound for the rear. 

Upon receipt of this information, Division Headquar- 
ters moved forward on the jump. Long before noon 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 369 

General Harbord, close behind his advancing troops, 
opened headquarters in the shattered farm buildings of 
Verte Feuille, the first community centre that had been 
taken by our men that morning. Prisoners were com- 
ing back in droves. 

I encountered one column of disarmed Germans 
marching four abreast with the typical attitude of a 
''Kamerad" procession. The first eight of the prisoners 
carried on their shoulders two rudely constructed litters 
made from logs and blankets. A wounded American 
was on one litter and a wounded Frenchman on the 
other. 

A number of German knapsacks had been used to ele- 
vate the shoulders of both of the wounded men so that 
they occupied positions half sitting and half reclining. 
Both of them were smoking cigarettes and chatting gaily 
as they rode high and mighty on the shoulders of their 
captives, while behind them stretched a regal retinue of 
eight hundred more. 

As this column proceeded along one side of the road, 
the rest of the roadway was filled with men, guns and 
equipment all moving forward. Scottish troops in kilts 
swung by and returned the taunts which our men laugh- 
ingly directed at their kilts and bare knees. 

Slightly wounded Americans came back guarding con- 
voys of prisoners. They returned loaded with relics of 
the fighting. It was said that day that German prison- 
ers had explained that in their opinion, the British were 
in the war because they hated Germany and that the 
French were in the war because the war was in France, 
but that Americans seemed to be fighting to collect sou- 
veniers. 

I saw one of these American souvenier collectors 
bound for the rear. In stature he was one of the short- 



370 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

est men I had ever seen in our uniform. He must have 
spent long* years in the cavalry, because he was fright- 
fully bowlegged. He was herding in front of him two 
enormous German prisoners who towered head and 
shoulders above him. 

He manifested a confidence in his knowledge of all 
prisoners and things German. Germans were ''foreign- 
ers." "Foreigners" spoke a foreign language. There- 
fore to make a German understand you, it was only nec- 
essary to speak with them in a foreign language. French 
was a foreign language so the bowlegged American 
guard made use of his limited knowledge. 

"Allay ! Allay ! Allay veet t'-ell outer here," he urged 
his charges. 

He was wearing his helmet back on his head so that 
there was exposed a shock of black, blood-matted hair 
on his forehead. A white bandage ran around his fore- 
head and on the right side of his face a strip of cotton 
gauze connected with another white bandage around his 
neck. There was a red stain on the white gauze over the 
right cheek. 

His face was rinsed with sweat and very dirty. In 
one hand he carried a large chunk of the black German 
war bread — once the property of his two prisoners. 
With his disengaged hand he conveyed masses of the 
food to his lips which were circled with a fresco of 
crumbs. 

His face was wreathed in a remarkable smile — a smile 
of satisfaction that caused the corners of his mouth to 
turn upward toward his eyes. I also smiled when I 
made a casual inventory of the battlefield loot with which 
he had decorated his person. Dangling by straps from 
his right hip were five holsters containing as many Ger- 
man automatic pistols of the Lueger make, worth about 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 371 

$35 apiece. Suspended from his right shoulder by straps 
to his left hip, were six pairs of highly prized German 
field glasses, worth about $100 apiece. I acquired a bet- 
ter understanding of his contagious smile of property 
possession when I inquired his name and his rank. He 
replied : 

^'Sergeant Harry Silverstein." 

Later, attracted by a blast of extraordinary profan- 
ity, I approached one of our men who was seated by the 
roadside. A bullet had left a red crease across his 
cheek but this was not what had stopped him. The hob- 
nail sole of his shoe had been torn off and he was try- 
ing to fasten it back on with a combination of straps. 
His profane denunciations included the U. S. Quarter- 
master Department, French roads, barbed wire, hot 
weather and, occasionally, the Germans. 

'This sure is a hell of a mess," he said, *'for a fel- 
low to find himself in this fix just when I was beginning 
to catch sight of 'em. I enlisted in the army to come to 
France to kill Germans but I never thought for one min- 
ute they'd bring me over here and try to make me run 
'em to death. What we need is greyhounds. And as 
usual the Q. M. fell down again. Why, there wasn't a 
lassoe in our whole company." 

The prisoners came back so fast that the Intelligence 
Department was flooded. The divisional intelligence of- 
ficer asked me to assist in the interrogation of the cap- 
tives. I questioned some three hundred of them. 

An American sergeant who spoke excellent German, 
interrogated. I sat behind a small table in a field and 
the sergeant would call the prisoners forward one by one. 
In German he asked one captive what branch of the serv- 
ice he belonged to. The prisoner wishing to display his 



372 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

knowledge of English and at the same time give vent to 
some pride, replied in English. 

"I am of the storm troop," he said. 

"Storm troop?" replied the American sergeant, ''do 
you know what we are? We are from Kansas. We 
are Cycloners." 

Another German student of English among the pris- 
oners was represented in the person of a pompous Ger- 
man major, who, in spite of being a captive, maintained 
all the dignity of his rank. He stood proudly erect and 
held his head high. He wore a disgusted look on his 
face, as though the surroundings were painful. His 
uniform was well pressed, his linen was clean, his boots 
were well polished, he was clean shaven. There was 
not a speck of dust upon him and he did not look like a 
man who had gone through the hell of battle that morn- 
ing. The American sergeant asked him in German to 
place the contents of his pockets on the table. 

"I understand English," he replied superciliously, with 
a strong accent, as he complied with the request. I no- 
ticed, however, that he neglected to divest himself of one 
certain thing that caught my interest. It was a leather 
thong that extended around his neck and disappeared be- 
tween the first and second buttons of his tunic. Curi- 
osity forced me to reach across the table and extract the 
hidden terminal of that thong. I found suspended on 
it the one thing in all the world that exactly fitted me 
and that I wanted. It was a one-eyed field glass. I 
thanked him. 

He told me that he had once been an interne in a hos- 
pital in New York but happening to be in Germany at 
the outbreak of the war, he had immediately entered the 
army and had risen to the rank of a major in the Medical 



I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 373 

Corps. I was anxious for his opinion, obvious as it 
might have seemed. 

"What do you think of the fighting capacity of the 
American soldier?" I asked him. 

"I do not know," he repHed in the accented but dig- 
nified tones of a superior who painfully finds himself in 
the hands of one considered inferior. "I have never 
seen him fight. He is persuasive — yes. 

"I was in a dug-out with forty German wounded in 
the cellar under the Beaurepaire Farm, when the terri- 
ble bombardment landed. I presume my gallant com- 
rades defending the position died at their posts, because 
soon the barrage lifted and I walked across the cellar 
to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. 

"There in the little patch of white light on the level 
of the ground above me, I saw the first American sol- 
dier I have seen in the war. But he did not impress me 
much as a soldier. I did not like his carriage or his 
bearing. 

"He wore his helmet far back on his head. And he 
did not have his coat on. His collar was not buttoned; 
it was rolled back and his throat was bare. His sleeves 
were rolled up to the elbow. And he had a grenade in 
each hand. 

"Just then he looked down the stairs and saw me^ — 
saw me standing there — saw me, a major — and he 
shouted roughly, 'Come out of there, you big Dutch 
B d, or rU spill a basketful of these on you.' " 

All through that glorious day of the i8th, our lines 
swept forward victoriously. The First Division fought 
it out on the left, the Foreign Legion in the centre and 
the Second Division with the Marines pushed forward 
on tfie right. Village after village fell into our hands. 



374 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

We captured batteries of guns and thousands of pris- 
oners. 

On through the night the Allied assault continued. 
Our men fought without water or food. All road space 
behind the lines was devoted to the forwarding of re- 
serves, artillery and munitions. By the morning of the 
19th, we had so far penetrated the enemy's lines that 
we had crossed the road running southward from Sois- 
sons to Chateau-Thierry, thereby disrupting the ene- 
my's communications between his newly established base 
and the peak of his salient. Thus exposed to an envel- 
oping movement that might have surrounded large num- 
bers, there was nothing left for the Germans to do but 
to withdraw. 

The Allied army commander, who directed the Amer- 
icans on that glorious day, was General Joseph Man- 
gin. His opinion of the immortal part played on that 
day by those two American divisions may be seen in the 
following order which he caused to be published : 

OiUcers, Noncommissioned OMcers, and Soldiers of the 
American Army: 

Shoulder to shoulder with your French comrades, you 
threw yourselves into the counter-offensive begun on 
July 1 8th. You ran to it as if going to a feast. Your 
magnificent dash upset and surprised the enemy, and 
your indomitable tenacity stopped counter attacks by his 
fresh divisions. You have shown yourselves to be 
worthy sons of your great country and have gained the 
admiration of your brothers in arms. 

Ninety-one cannon, 7,200 prisoners, immense booty, 
and ten kilometres of reconquered territory are your 
share of the trophies of this victory. Besides this, you 
have acquired a feeling of your superiority over the bar- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 375 

barian enemy against whom the children of liberty are 
fighting. To attack him is to vanquish him. 

American comrades, I am grateful to you for the 
blood you generously spilled on the soil of my country. 
I am proud of having commanded you during such 
splendid days and to have fought with you for the de- 
liverance of the world. 

The Germans began backing off the Marne. From 
that day on, their movement to date has continued back- 
ward. It began July i8th. Two American Divisions 
played glorious parts in the crisis. It was their day. It 
was America's day. It was the turn of the tide. 



376 "AND THEY THOUGHT 



CHAPTER XX 

THE DAWN OF VICTORY 

The waited hour had come. The forced retreat of 
the German hordes had begun. Hard on their heels, the 
American Hnes started their northward push, backing 
the Boche off the Marne. 

On the morning of July 21st I rode into Chateau- 
Thierry with the first American soldiers to enter 
the town. The Germans had evacuated hurriedly. 
Chateau-Thierry was reoccupied jointly by our forces 
and those of the French. 

Here was the grave of German hopes. Insolent, im- 
perialistic longings for the great prize, Paris, ended 
here. The dream of the Kultur conquest of the world 
had become a nightmare of horrible realisation that 
America was in the war. Pompously flaunted strategy 
crumpled at historic Chateau-Thierry. 

That day of the occupation, the wrecked city was com- 
paratively quiet. Only an occasional German shell — a 
final parting spite shell — whined disconsolately overhead 
and landed in a cloud of dust and debris in some vacant 
ruin that had once been a home. 

For seven long weeks the enemy had been in occupa- 
tion of that part of the city on the north bank of the 
river. Now the streets were littered with debris. Al- 
though the walls of most of the buildings seemed to be 
in good shape, the scene was one of utter devastation. 

The Germans had built barracades across the streets 
— particularly the streets that led down to the river — 
because it was those streets that were swept with the 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 377 

terrific fire of American machine guns. At the inter- 
sections of those streets the Germans under cover of 
night had taken up the cobblestones and built parapets 
to protect them from the hail of lead. 

Wrecked furniture was hip deep on the Rue Carnot. 
Along the north bank of the river on the Quai de la 
Poterne and the Promenade de la Levee, the invader had 
left his characteristic mark. Shop after shop had been 
looted of its contents and the fronts of the pretty side- 
walk cafes along this business thoroughfare had been 
reduced to shells of their former selves. 

Not a single living being was in sight as we marched 
in. Some of the old townsfolk and some young chil- 
dren had remained but they were still under cover. 
Among these French people who had lived for seven 
weeks through the hell of battle that had raged about 
the town, was Madame de Prey, who was eighty-seven 
years old. To her, home meant more than life. She 
had spent the time in her cellar, caring for German 
wounded. 

The town had been systematically pillaged. The Ger- 
man soldiers had looted from the shops much material 
which they had made up into packages to be mailed back 
to home folks in the Fatherland. The church, strangely 
enough, was picked out as a depository for their lar- 
cenies. Nothing from the robes of the priests down to 
the copper faucet of a water pipe had escaped their 
greed. 

The advancing Americans did not linger in the town 
— save for small squads of engineers that busied them- 
selves with the removal of the street obstructions and 
the supply organisations that perfected communication 
for the advancing lines. These Americans were Yankees 



378 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

all — they comprised the 26th U. S. Division, representing 
the National Guard of New England. 

Our lines kept pushing to the north. The Germans 
continued their withdrawal and the Allied necessity was 
to keep contact with them. This, the Yankee Division 
succeeded in doing. The first obstacle encountered to 
the north of Chateau-Thierry was the stand that the 
Germans made at the town of Epieds. 

On July 23rd, our infantry had proceeded up a ravine 
that paralleled the road into Epieds. German machine 
guns placed on the hills about the village, swept them 
with a terrible fire. Our men succeeded in reaching the 
village, but the Germans responded with such a terrific 
downpour of shell that our weakened ranks were forced 
to withdraw and the Germans re-entered the town. 

On the following day we renewed the attack with the 
advantage of positions which we had won during the 
night in the Bois de Trugny and the Bois de Chatelet. 
We advanced from three sides and forced the Germana 
to evacuate. Trugny, the small village on the edge of 
the woods, was the scene of more bloody fighting which 
resulted in our favour. 

Further north of Epieds, the Germans having en- 
trenched themselves along the roadway, had fortified 
the same with a number of machine guns which com- 
manded the flat terrain in such a way as to make a 
frontal attack by infantry waves most costly. The se- 
curity of the Germans in this position received a severe 
shock when ten light automobiles, each one mounting one 
or two machine guns, started up the road toward the 
enemy, firing as they sped. It was something new. The 
Germans wanted to surrender, but the speed of the cars 
obviated such a possibility. So the enemy fled before 
our gasoline cavalry. 



I 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 379 

The Germans were withdrawing across the river 
Ourcq, whose valley is parallel to that of the Marne and 
just to the north. The enemy's intentions of making a 
stand here were frustrated by violent attacks, which suc- 
ceeded, in carrying our forces into positions on the north 
side of the Ourcq. These engagements straightened out 
the Allied line from the Ourcq on the west to Fere-en- 
Tardenois on the east, which had been taken the same 
day by French and American troops. 

By this time the German withdrawal was becoming 
speedier. Such strong pressure was maintained by our 
men against the enemy's rear guards that hundreds of 
tons of German ammunition had to be abandoned and 
fell into our hands. Still the retreat bore no evidences 
of a rout. 

The enemy retired in orderly fashion. He bitterly 
contested every foot of ground he was forced to give. 
The American troops engaged in those actions had to 
fight hard for every advance. The German backed out 
of the Marne salient as a Western "bad man" would 
back out of a saloon with an automatic pistol in each 
hand. 

Those charges that our men made across the muddy 
fiats of the Ourcq deserve a place in the martial history 
of America. They faced a veritable hell of machine 
gun fire. They went through barrages of shrapnel and 
high explosive shell. They invaded small forests that 
the enemy had flooded with poison gas. No specific ob- 
jectives were assigned. The principal order was *'Up 
and at 'em" and this was reinforced by every man's de- 
termination to keep the enemy on the run now that they 
had been started. 

Even the enemy's advantage of high positions north 
of the river failed to hold back the men from New York, 



38o "AND THEY THOUGHT 

from Iowa, Alabama, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota and 
Indiana, who had relieved the hard fighting Yankees. 
These new American organisations went up against fresh 
German divisions that had been left behind with orders 
to hold at all cost. But nothing the enemy could do 
could prevent our crossing of the Ourcq. 

On July 30th the fighting had become most intense 
in character. The fact that the town of Sergy was 
captured, lost and recaptured nine times within twenty- 
four hours, is some criterion of the bitterness of the 
struggle. This performance of our men can be better 
understood when it is stated that the enemy opposing 
them there consisted of two fresh divisions of the 
Kaiser's finest — his Prussian Guard. 

After that engagement with our forces, the Fourth 
Prussian Guard Division went into an enforced retire- 
ment. When our men captured Sergy the last time, they 
did so in sufficient strength to withhold it against re- 
peated fierce counter attacks by a Bavarian Guard divi- 
sion that had replaced the wearied Prussians. 

But before the crack Guard Division was withdrawn 
from the line, it had suffered terrible losses at our hands. 
Several prisoners captured said that their company had 
gone into the fight one hundred and fifty strong and only 
seven had survived. That seven were captured by our 
men in hand to hand fighting. 

While our engineer forces repaired the roads and 
constructed bridges in the wake of our advancing lines, 
the enemy brought to that part of the front new squad- 
rons of air fighters which were sent over our lines for 
the purpose of observation and interference with com- 
munications. They continually bombed our supply de- 
pots and ammunition dumps. 

After the crossing of the Ourcq the American advance 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHi ' 381 

reached the next German Hne of resistance, which rested 
on two terminal strongholds. One was in the Foret de 
Nesles and the other was in the Bois de Meuniere. 

The fighting about these two strong points was par- 
ticularly fierce. In the Bois de Meuniere and around the 
town of Cierges, the German resistance was most de- 
termined. About three hundred Jaegers held Hill 200, 
which was located in the centre of Cierges Forest, just 
to the south of the village of the same name. They 
were well provided with machine guns and ammunition. 
They were under explicit orders to hold and they did. 

Our men finally captured the position at the point of 
the bayonet. Most of its defenders fought to the death. 
The capture of the hill was the signal for a renewal 
of our attacks against the seemingly impregnable 
Meuniere woods. Six times our advancing waves 
reached the German positions in the southern edge of 
the woods and six times we were driven back. 

There were some American Indians in the ranks of 
our units attacking there — there were lumber jacks and 
farmer boys and bookkeepers, and they made heroic 
rushes against terrific barriers of hidden machine guns. 
But after a day of gallant fighting they had been unable 
to progress. 

Our efforts had by no means been exhausted. The 
following night our artillery concentrated on the 
southern end of the woods and literally turned it into an 
inferno with high explosive shells. Early in the morn- 
ing we moved to the attack again. Tw^o of the Kaiser's 
most reputable divisions, the 200th Jaegers and the 216th 
Reserve, occupied the wood. The fighting in the wood 
was fierce and bloody, but it was more to the liking of 
our men than the rushes across fire-swept fields. Our 



382 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

men went to work with the bayonet. And for six hours 
they Hterally carved their way through four kilometres 
of the forest. Before ten o'clock the next morning, our 
lines lay to the north of the woods. 

In consolidating the gains in the woods, our men sur- 
rounded in a small clearing some three hundred of the 
enemy who refused to surrender. American squads ad- 
vanced with the bayonet from all sides. The Germans 
were fighting for their lives. Only three remained to 
accept the ignominy of capture. 

Our forward progress continued and by August 4th 
the Germans were withdrawing across the Vesle River. 
The immediate objective that presented itself to the 
Americans was the important German supply depot at 
Fismes. It was in and around Fismes that some of the 
bloodiest fighting in the second battle of the Marne took 
place. The capture of Fismes was the crowning achieve- 
ment of one American division that so distingushed itself 
as to be made the subject of a special report to the 
French General Headquarters by the French army in 
which the Americans fought. In part, the report read: 

'*0n Aug. 4th the infantry combats were localized with 
terrible fury. The outskirts of Fismes were solidly 
held by the Germans, where their advance grgups were 
difficult to take. The Americans stormed them and 
reduced them with light mortars and thirty-sevens. 
They succeeded, though not without loss, and at the 
end of the day, thanks to this slow but sure tenacity, 
they were within one kilometre of Fismes and masters 
of Villes, Savoye and Chezelle Farm. All night long 
rains hindered their movements and rendered their fol- 
lowing day's task more arduous. On their right the 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 383 

French had, by similar stages, conquered a series of 
woods and swamps of Meuniere Woods, to the east of 
St. Gilles, and were on the plateau of Bonne Maison 
Farm. To the left another American unit had been able 
to advance upon the Vesle to the east of St. Thibault. 

''On Aug. 5th the artillery prepared for the attack 
on Fismes by a bombardment, well regulated, and the 
final assault was launched. The Americans penetrated 
into the village and then began the mean task of clearing 
the last point of resistance. That evening this task was 
almost completed. We held all the northern part of the 
village as far as Rheims road, and patrols were sent into 
the northern end of the village. Some even succeeded 
in crossing the Vesle, but were satisfied with making a 
reconnaisance, as the Germans still occupied the right 
bank of the river in great strength. All that was left 
to be accomplished was to complete the mopping up of 
Fismes and the strengthening of our positions to with- 
stand an enemy counter attack. 

**Such was the advance of one American division, 
which pushed the enemy forward from Roncheres on 
July 30th a distance of eighteen kilometres and crowned 
its successful advance with the capture of Fismes on 
Aug. 5th.'' 

The German line on the Vesle river fell shortly after 
the capture of Fismes. The enemy was forced to fall 
back to his next natural line of defence on the Aisne. 
Between the Vesle and the Aisne, the Americans as- 
sisted the French in the application of such persistent 
pressure that the enemy's stubborn resistance was over- 
come and in many places he was forced to withdraw 
before he had time to destroy his depots of supply. 



384 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

On August 9th, General Degoutte, commanding the 
Sixth French Army, issued the following order: 

''Before the great offensive of July i8th, the American 
troops, forming part of the 6th French Army, distin- 
guished themselves by clearing the 'Brigade de Marine* 
Woods and the village of Vaux of the enemy and arrest- 
ing his offensive on the Marne and at Fossoy. 

''Since then they have taken the most glorious part in 
the second battle of the Marne, rivalling the French 
troops in ardour and valour. 

"During twenty days of constant fighting they have 
freed numerous French villages and made, across a diffi- 
cult country, an advance of forty kilometres, which has 
brought them to the Vesle. 

"Their glorious marches are marked by names which 
will shine in future in the military history of the United 
States: Torcy, Belleau, Plateau d'Etrepilly, Epieds, Le 
Charmel, I'Ourcq, Seringeset Nesles, Sergy, La Vesle 
and Fismes. 

"These young divisions, who saw fire for the first 
time, have shown themselves worthy of the old war 
traditions of the regular army. They have had the same 
burning desire to fight the Boche, the same discipline 
which sees that the order given by their commander is 
always executed, whatever the difficulties to be overcome 
and the sacrifices to be suffered. 

"The magnificent results obtained are due to the energy 
and the skill of the commanders, to the bravery of the 
soldiers. 

"I am proud to have commanded such troops." 

Through the month of August and up to the first days 
of September, the Americans participated in the impor- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 385 

tant operations to the north of Soissons, where on 
August 29th they played a big part in the capture of 
the Juvigny Plateau. 

In this fighting, which was marked by the desperate 
resistance of the enemy, the Americans were incorporated 
in the loth French Army under the command of General 
Mangin. Violent counter attacks by German shock divi- 
sions failed to stem the persistent advances of our forces. 

A large hill to the north of Juvigny constituted a key 
and supporting position for the enemy. In spite of the 
large number of machine guns concealed on its slopes, 
the Americans succeeded in establishing a line between 
the hill and the town. At the same time the American 
line extended itself around the other side of the hill. 
With the consummation of this enveloping movement, 
the hill was taken by assault. 

On Labor Day, September 2nd, after bitterly engag- 
ing four German divisions for five days, the Americans 
advanced their lines to Terny-Sorny and the road run- 
ning between Soissons and St. Quentin. This achieve- 
ment, which was accomplished by driving the Germans 
back a depth of four miles on a two mile front, gave our 
forces a good position on the important plateau running 
to the north of the Aisne. 

Our observation stations now commanded a view 
across the valley toward the famous Chemin des Dames 
which at one time had been a part of the Hindenburg 
line. Before the invasion of the German hordes, France 
possessed no fairer country-side than the valley of the 
Aisne. But the Germans, retreating, left behind them 
only wreckage and ashes and ruin. The valley spread 
out before our lines was scarred with the shattered re- 
mains of what had once been peaceful farming com- 



386 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

munities. To the northwest there could be seen the 
spires above the city of Laon. 

The American units which took part in this bitter 
fighting that had continued without a day's cessation 
since July i8th, were mentioned specifically in an order 
issued on August 27th by General Pershing. The order 
read : 

"It fills me with pride to record in general orders a 
tribute to the service achievements of the First and Third 
Corps, comprising the First, Second, Third, Fourth, 
Twenty-sixth, Twenty-eighth, Thirty-second and Forty- 
second Divisions of the American Expeditionary Forces. 

"You came to the battlefield at a crucial hour for 
the Allied cause. For almost four years the most for- 
midable army the world has yet seen had pressed its 
invasion of France and stood threatening its capital. 
At no time has that army been more powerful and 
menacing than when, on July 15th, it struck again to 
destroy in one great battle the brave men opposed to it 
and to enforce its brutal will upon the world and civili- 
sation. 

"Three days later in conjunction with our Allies you 
counter-attacked. The Allied armies gained a brilliant 
victory that marks the turning point of the war. You 
did more than to give the Allies the support to which, 
as a nation, our faith was pledged. You proved that 
our altruism, our pacific spirit, and our sense of justice 
have not blunted our virility or our courage. 

"You have shown that American initiative and energy 
are as fit for the tasks of war as for the pursuits of 
peace. You have justly won unstinted praise from our 
Allies and the eternal gratitude of our countrymen. 

"We have paid for our successes with the lives of 



WE WOULDNT FIGHT" 387 

many of our brave comrades. We shall cherish their 
memory always and claim for our history and literature 
their bravery, achievement and sacrifice. 

'This order will be read to all organisations at the 
first assembly formations following its receipt. 

"Pershing." 

August loth marked a milestone in the military efifort 
of the United States. On that da,y the organisation 
was completed of the First American Field Army. I 
have tried to show in this record how we began the 
organisation of our forces overseas. Our first troops to 
reach France were associated in small units with the 
French. Soon our regiments began to reach the front 
under French Division Commanders. Then with the 
formation of American divisions, we went into the line 
under French corps commanders. Later still, American 
corps operated under French Army Commanders. 
Finally, our forces augmented by additional divisions 
and corps were organised into the First American Field 
Army. 

Through these various stages of development, our 
forces had grown until on August loth they had reached 
the stage where they became practically as independent 
an organisation as the British armies under Field Mar- 
shal Sir Douglas Haig and the French armies under 
General Petain. From now on the American Army was 
to be on a par with the French Army and the British 
Army, all three of them under the sole direction of the 
Allied Generalissimo, Marshal Ferdinand Foch. 

The personnel of this, the greatest single army that 
ever fought beneath the Stars and Stripes, is reproduced 
in the appendix. It might not be amiss to point out 
that an American division numbers thirty thousand men 



388 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

and that an American corps consists of six divisions and 
auxiliary troops, such as air squadrons, tank sections, 
and heavy artillery, which bring the strength of an 
American army corps to between 225,000 and 250,000 
men. By the ist of September, the United States of 
America had five such army corps in the field, martial- 
ling a strength of about one and one-half million bayo- 
nets. General Pershing was in command of this group 
of armies which comprised the First American Field 
Army. 

It was from these forces that General Pershing se- 
lected the strong units which he personally commanded 
in the first major operation of the First American Field 
Army as an independent unit in France. That opera- 
tion was the beginning of the Pershing push toward the 
Rhine— it was the Battle of St. Mihiel. 

It was a great achievement. It signalised the full 
development of our forces from small emergency units 
that had reached the front less than a year before, to the 
now powerful group of armies, fighting under their 
own flag, their own generals, and their own staffs. 

The important material results of the Battle of St. 
Mihiel are most susceptible to civilian as well as military 
comprehension. The St. Mihiel salient had long con- 
stituted a pet threat of the enemy. The Germans called 
it a dagger pointed at the heart of eastern France. For 
three years the enemy occupying it had successfully re- 
sisted all efforts of the Allies to oust them. 

The salient was shaped like a triangle. The apex 
of the triangle^ — the point of the dagger — thrusting 
southward, rested on the town of St. Mihiel, on the river 
Meuse. The western flank of the triangle extended 
northward from St. Mihiel to points beyond Verdun. 
The eastern flank of the triangle extended in a north- 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 389 

easterly direction toward Pont-a-Mousson. It was the 
strongest position held by the Germans in Lorraine — if 
not on the entire front. 

The geographical formation of the saHent was an invi- 
tation for the application of a pincers operation. The 
point of leverage of the opposing jaws of the pincers 
was, most naturally, the apex of the triangle at St. 
Mihiel. 

One claw of the pincers — a claw some eight miles 
thick, bit into the east side of the salient near Pont-a- 
Mousson on the west bank of the Moselle River. The 
other claw of the pincers was about eight miles thick 
and it bit into the western flank of the salient in the 
vicinity of the little town of Haudiomont, on the heights 
of the Meuse and just a little distance to the east of the 
Meuse River. 

The distance across that part of the salient through 
which the pincer's claws were biting was about thirty 
miles, and the area which would be included in the bite 
would be almost a hundred and seventy-five square miles. 
This, indeed, was a major operation. 

The battle began at one o'clock on the morning of 
September 12th, when the concentrated ordnance of 
the heaviest American artillery in France opened a pre- 
paratory fire of unprecedented intensity. 

At five o'clock in the dim dawn of that September 
morning, our infantry waves leaped from their trenches 
and moved forward to the assault. The claw of the 
pincers on the eastern flank of the salient began to bite in. 

One hour later the claw of the pincers on the western 
flank of the salient began to move forward. 

On the east, our men went forward on the run over 
ground that we had looked upon with envious eyes from 
the day that the first American troops reached the front. 



390 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

Before noon we had taken the villages of Lahayville, St. 
Baussant, Vilcey and the Bois de Mortmare and we were 
still advancing. By nightfall, our lines were still on the 
move beyond Essey and we were holding the important 
town of Thiaucourt and claimed Villers sur Penny for 
our own. 

The seemingly impregnable fortress of Mont Sec had 
been surrounded, our tanks had cleared the way through 
Pannes, we had taken Nonsard and the towns of Woin- 
ville and Buxieres had fallen into our hands. 

On the west side of the salient the day had gone equally 
well for us. The western claw of the pincers had pushed 
due east through the towns of Spada and Lavigneville. 
Our men had swept on in the night through Ch' illon, we 
had taken St. Remy and had cleared the Forei de Mon- 
tague. By midnight their advanced patrols had reached 
the western part of the town of Vigneulles. In the 
meantime, our forces on the eastern side of the salient 
were pushing westward toward this same town of 
Vigneulles. At three o'clock in the morning the forces 
from the east were occupying the eastern part of the town. 
The pincers had closed; the St. Mihiel salient had been 
pinched off. 

Our forces actually met at nine o'clock on the morn- 
ing of September 13th. The junction was made at 
the town of Heudicourt to the south of Vigneulles. 
We had pocketed all of the German forces to the south 
of that town. Our centre had moved forward at nine 
o'clock the night before and occupied St. Mihiel on the 
heels of the retreating Germans. But the withdrawal 
was too late. Large numbers of them found themselves 
completely surrounded in the forests between St. Mihiel 
on the south and Heudicourt on the north. 

We closed in during the afternoon and started to open 



f 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 391 

the prize package. Located in the area, encircled by out 
troops, was the Bois de Versel, the Bois de Gaumont 
and the Bois de Woeuvre. Each one of these Httle 
forests gave up its quota of prisoners, while much ma- 
terial and rich booty of war fell into our hands. 

The principal avenue that had been opened for the 
Germans to make a possible withdrawal led through 
Vigneulles and before our pincers had completely closed, 
the fleeing enemy had poured out through that gap at 
the rate of several thousand an hour. The roads were 
blocked for miles with their transportation, and when 
the American artillery turned its attention to these 
thoroughfares, crowded with confused Germans, the 
slaughter was terrific. For days after the battle our 
sanitation squads were busy at their grewsome work. 

In conception and execution the entire operation had 
been perfect. Confusion had been visited upon the 
method-loving enemy from the beginning. By reason 
of the disruption of their intercommunications, faulty 
liaison had resulted and division had called to division 
in vain for assistance, not knowng at the time that all of 
them were in equally desperate straits. The enemy 
fought hard but to no purpose. 

One entire regiment with its commander and his staff 
was captured. With both flanks exposed, it had sud- 
denly been confronted by Americans on four sides. The 
surrender was so complete that the German commander 
requested that his roll should be called in order to ascer- 
tain the extent of his losses. When this was done, every 
one was accounted for except one officer and one private. 

As his command was so embarrassingly complete, the 
German commander asked permission to march it off in 
whatever direction desired by his captors. The request 
was granted, and there followed the somewhat amusing 



392 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

spectacle of an entire German regiment, without arms, 
marching off the battlefield under their own officers. 
The captured regiment was escorted to the rear by 
mounted American guards, who smilingly and leisurely 
rode their horses cowboy fashion as they herded their 
captives back to the pens. 

Tons upon tons of ammunition fell into our hands in 
the woods. At one place twenty-two railroad cars loaded 
with large calibre ammunition had to be abandoned 
when an American shell had torn up the track to the 
north of them. But if the Germans had been unable to 
take with them their equipment, they had succeeded in 
driving ahead of them on the retreat almost all of the 
French male civilians between sixteen and forty-five 
years that had been used as German slaves for more than 
four years. 

The Americans were welcomed as deliverers by those 
French civilians that remained in the town. They were 
found to be almost entirely ignorant of the most com- 
monly known historical events of the war. Secretary 
of War Baker and Generals Pershing and Petain visited 
the town of St. Mihiel a few hours after it was captured. 
They were honoured with a spontaneous demonstration 
by the girls and aged women, who crowded about them 
to express thanks and pay homage for deliverance. 

One of our bands began to play the "Marseillaise" and 
the old French civilians who, under German domination, 
had not heard the national anthem for four long years, 
broke down and wept. The mayor of the town told 
how the Germans had robbed it of millions of francs. 
First they had demanded and received one milHon five 
hundred thousand francs and later they collected five 
hundred thousand more in three instalments. In addi- 
tion to these robberies, they had taken by "requisition" 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 393 

all the furniture and mattresses and civilian comforts 
that they could find. They took what they wanted and 
usually destroyed the rest. They had stripped the towns 
of all metal utensils, bells, statues, and water pipes. 

The St. Mihiel salient thus went out of existence. 
The entire point in the blade of the dagger that had been 
thrust at the heart of France had been bitten off. Ver- 
dun with its rows upon rows of sacred dead was now 
liberated from the threat of envelopment from the right. 
The Allies were in possession of the dominating heights 
of the Meuse. The railroads connecting Commercy 
with Vigneulles, Thiaucourt and St. Mihiel were in our 
hands. Our lines had advanced close to that key of 
victory, the Briey iron basin to the north, and the Ger- 
man fortress of Metz lay under American guns. 

The battle only lasted twenty-seven hours. In that 
space of time, a German force estimated at one hundred 
thousand had been vanquished, if not literally cut to 
pieces, American soldiers had wrested a hundred and 
fifty square miles of territory away from the Germans, 
captured fifteen thousand officers and men and hundreds 
of guns. General Pershing on September 14th made the 
following report: 

*The dash and vigour of our troops, and of the valiant 
French divisions which fought shoulder to shoulder with 
them, is shown by the fact that the forces attacking on 
both faces of the salient effected a junction and secured 
the result desired within twenty-seven hours. 

"Besides liberating more than 150 square miles of ter- 
ritory and taking 15,000 prisoners, we have captured a 
mass of material. Over 100 guns of all calibres and 
hundreds of machine guns and trench mortars have been 
taken. 
i 



394 "AND THEY THOtTGHT 

"In spite of the fact that the enemy during his retreat 
burned large stores, a partial examination of the battle- 
field shows that great quantities of ammunition, telegraph 
material, railroad material, rolling stock, clothing, and 
equipment have been abandoned. Further evidence of the 
haste with which the enemy retreated is found in the 
uninjured bridges which he left behind. 

'Trench pursuit, bombing and reconnaissance units, 
and British and Italian bombing units divided with our 
own air service the control of the air, and contributed 
materially to the successes of the operation." 

And while this great battle was in progress, the Allied 
lines were advancing everywhere. In Flanders, in 
Picardy, on the Marne, in Champagne, in Lorraine, in 
Alsace, and in the Balkans the frontier of freedom was 
moving forward. 

Surely the tide had turned. And surely it had been 
America's God-given opportunity to play the big part 
she did play. The German was now on the run. Sus- 
picious whisperings of peace began to be heard in neutral 
countries. They had a decided German accent. Ger- 
many saw defeat staring her in the face and now, having 
failed to win in the field, she sought to win by a bluff at 
the peace table. 

The mailed fist having failed, Germany now resorted 
to cunning. The mailed fist was now an open palm that 
itched to press in brotherhood the hands of the Allies. 
But it was tlie same fist that struck down the peace of the 
world in 1 9 14. It was the same Germany that had rav- 
ished and outraged Belgium. It was the same Germany 
many that had covered America with her net of spies and 
that had tried to murder France. It was the same Ger- 
had sought to bring war to our borders with Mexico and 






WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 395 

Japan. It was the same Germany that had ruthlessly de- 
stroyed the lives of women and children, American citi- 
zens, non-combatants, riding the free seas under the 
protection of the Stars and Stripes. It was the same 
Germany that had drugged Russia with her corrupting 
propaganda and had throttled the voice of Russian democ- 
racy. This Germany, this unrepentant Germany — this 
unpunished Germany, launched her drive for peace. 

Germany was willing to make any concessions to bring 
about negotiations that would save her from a defeat in 
the field. There was one thing, however, that Germany 
wanted to save from the ruin she had brought down upon 
herself. That thing was the German army and its strong 
auxiliary, the German navy. Neither one of them had 
been destroyed. The army was in general retreat and 
the navy was locked up in the Baltic, but both of them 
remained in existence as menaces to the future peace of 
the world. With these two forces of might, Germany 
could have given up her booty of war, offered reparation 
for her transgressions and drawn back behind the Rhine 
to await the coming of another Der Tag when she 
could send them once more crashing across friendly 
borders and cruising the seven seas on missions of piracy. 

Germany was in the position of a bully, who without 
provocation and without warning had struck down from 
behind a man who had not been prepared to defend him- 
self. The victim's movements had been impeded by a 
heavy overcoat. He had been utterly and entirely un- 
prepared for the onslaught. The bully had struck him 
with a club and had robbed him. 

The unprepared man had tried to free himself from the 
overcoat of pacifism that he had worn so long in safety 
and in kindliness to his fellows. The bully, taking ad- 
vantage of his handicap, had beaten him brutally. At 



396 "AND THEY THOUGHT 

last the unprepared man had freed himself from the 
overcoat and then stood ready not only to defend him- 
self, but to administer deserved punishment. Then the 
bully had said : 

''Now, wait just a minute. Let's talk this thing over 
and see if we can't settle it before I get hurt." 

The bully's pockets bulge with the loot he has taken 
from the man. The victim's face and head are swollen 
and bloody and yet the bully invites him to sit down to a 
table to discuss the hold-up, the assault, and the terms of 
which the loot and the loot only will be returned. The 
bully takes it for granted that he is to go unpunished and, 
more important still, is to retain the club that he might 
decide to use again. 

The rule of common sense that deals with individuals 
should be the same rule that applies to the affairs of na- 
tions. No municipal law anywhere in the world gives 
countenance to a compromise with a criminal. Inter- 
national law could be no less moral than municipal law. 
Prussian militarism made the world unsafe for Democ- 
racy, and for that reason, on April 6th, 191 7, the United 
States entered the war. 

We wanted a decent world in which to live. And the 
existence of the Prussian army and its conscienceless 
masters was incompatible with the free and peaceful life 
of the world. We entered the war for an ideal. That 
ideal was in the balance when Germany made her 19 18 
drive for peace. 

Our army in France knew that if peace came with an 
unwhipped Prussian army in existence, the world would 
be just as unsafe for Democracy as it had ever been. 
Our army in France wanted no compromise that would 
leave Germany in possession of the instruments that had 
made possible her crimes against the world. Every man 



WE WOULDN'T FIGHT" 397 

that had shed blood, every man that had paid the final 
price, every woman that had shed tears, every cherished 
ideal of our one hundred and forty years of national life, 
v^ould have been sacrificed in vain, if we had condoned 
Germany's high crimes against civilisation and had made 
a compromise with the criminal. 

Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, 
spokesman of the Allied world, sounded the true Ameri- 
can note when, in his reply to the insincere German peace 
proposals, he referred the German Government to Mar- 
shal Foch, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies. 
War by the sword was to bring peace by the sword. 

And as I write these lines in the last days of October, 
1918, unconditional surrender is the song of the dove 
of peace perched on our bayonets as we march into the 
dawn of victory. 



APPENDIX 

PERSONNEL OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY 
FORCES IN FRANCE 

1ST ARMY CORPS 

Major Gen. Hunter Liggett, commanding. 

1st and 2nd Division, Regular Army; 26th, (New England), 
32d, (Michigan and Wisconsin), 41st, (Washington, Oregon, 
North and South Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, 
Idaho, Wyoming, and Minnesota), and 42d (Rainbow, troops 
from twenty-six States) Divisions, National Guard. 

1ST DIVISION — Major Gen. Charles P. Summerall, command- 
ing; Lieut. Col. Campbell King, Chief of Staff; Major H. K. 
Loughry, Adjutant General. 

1ST Brigade, Infantry — Major John L, Hines; i6th and i8th 
Regiments; 2d Machine Gun Battalion. 

2D Brigade, Infantry — Major Gen. Beaumont B. Buck; 26th 
and 28th Regiments; 3d Machine Gun Battalion. 

1ST Brigade, Field Artillery — (Commanding oflficer not an- 
nounced) ; 5th, 6th, and 7th Regiments; ist Trench Mortar 
Battery. 

Engineer Troops — ist Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 2nd Battalion. 

Division Units — ist Machine Gun Battalion. 

2ND DIVISION (U. S. M. C.)— Brig. Gen. John E. Le Jeune, 
commanding; Brig. Gen. Preston Brown, Chief of Staff. 

3RD Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Hanson E. Ely; 9th and 
23rd Regiments; 5th Machine Gun Battalion. 

4TH Brigade, InfantrV (Marines) — ^Brig. Gen. John E. 
Le Jeune; 5th and 6th Regiments; 6th Machine Gun Bat- 
talion. 

2D Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig Gen. A. J. Bowley; 12th, 
15th, and 17th Regiments; 2d Trench Mortar Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 2d Regiment. 

Signal Troops — ist Battalion. 

Division Units — 2d Division Headquarters Troops; 4th Ma- 
chine Gun Battalion. 

399 



400 APPENDIX 



26TH DIVISION— Major Gen. Clarence R. Edwards, command- 
ing; Lieut. Col. Cassius M. Dowell, Chief of Staff; Major 
Charles A. Stevens, Adjutant General. 

51ST Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. George H. Shelton; loist 
and I02d Regiments; I02d Machine Gun Battalion. 

52D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. C. H. Cole; 103d and 104th 
Regiments; 103d Machine Gun Battalion. 

51ST Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. D. E. Aultman; 
loist Trench Mortar Battery. 

Engineer Troops — loist Regiment. 

Signal Troops — icist Field Battalion. 

Division Units — 26th Headquarters Troop; loist Machine 
Gun Battalion. 

32ND DIVISION— Major Gen.W.G.Haan, commanding ; Lieut. 

Col. Allen L. Briggs, Chief of Staff; Major John H. How- 
ard, Adjutant General. 
63D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. William D. Connor; 125th 

and 126th Regiments; 120th Machine Gun Battalion. 
64TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. E. B. Winans; 127th and 

128th Regiments; 121st Machine Gun Battalion. 
57TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. G. LeRoy Irwin; 

119th, I20th and 121st Regiments; 107th Trench Mortar 

Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 107th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 107th Battalion. 
Division Units — 32d Headquarters Troops; 119th Machine 

Gun Battalion. 

41ST DIVISION (Sunset)— Major. Gen. Robert Alexander, 

commanding; Colonel Harry H. Tebbetts, Chief of Staff; 

Majoij Herbert H. White, Adjutant General. 
81ST Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Wilson B. Burt; i6ist 

and 162nd Regiments; 147th Machine Gun Battalion. 
82D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Edward Vollrath; 163rd 

and 164th Regiments; 148th Machine Gun Battalion. 
66th Brigade, Field Artillery — (Commanding officer not 

announced); 146th, 147th, and 148th Regiments; ii6th 

Trench Mortar Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 11 6th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — ii6th Battalion. 
Division Units — 41st Division Headquarters Troop; 146th 

Machine Gun Battalion. 

42D DIVISION (Rainbow)— MsLJor Gen. C. T. Menoher, 
commanding; (Chief of Staff not announced) ; Major Wal- 
ter E. Powers, Adjutant General. 



APPENDIX 401 



83D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. M. Lenihan; 165th and 

i66th Regiments; 150th Machine Gun Battalion. 
84TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. R. A. Brown; 167th and 

i68th Regiments; 151st Machine Gun Battalion. 
67TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. G. C. Gatley; 

149th, 150th and 151st Regiments; 117th Trench Mortar 

Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 117th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 117th Field Signal Battalion. 
Division Units — 426. Division Headquarters Troop; 149th 

Machine Gun Battalion. 



2ND ARMY CORPS 

Major Gen. Robert Lee Bullard, Commanding. 

4th Division, Regular Army; 28th, (Pennsylvania,) 30th, 
(Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and District of Colum- 
bia), and 36th (Missouri and Kansas) Divisions, National 
Guard; 77th (New York) and 82d (Georgia, Alabama, and 
Florida) Divisions, National Army. 

4TH DIVISION — Major Gen. George H. Cameron, command- 
ing; Lieut. Col. Christian A. Bach, Chief of Staff; Major 
Jesse D. Elliott, Adjutant General. 

7TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. B. A. Poort, 39th and 47th 
Regiments; nth Machine Gun Battalion. 

8th Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. E. E. Booth; 58th and 
59th Regiments; 12th Machine Gun Battalion. 

4TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. E. B. Babbitt; 13th, 
l6th and 77th Regiments; 4th Trench Mortar Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 4th Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 8th Battalion. 

Division Units — 4th Division Headquarters Troop; loth Ma- 
chine Gun Battalion. 

28TH DIVISION— Major Gen. C. H. Muir, commanding; 

(Chief of Staff not announced) ; Lieut. Col. David J. Davis, 

Adjutant General. 
55TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. T. W. Darrah; 109th 

and iioth Regiments; io8th Machine Gun Battalion. 
56TH Brigade, Infantry — Major Gen. William Weigel; iiith 

and ii2th Regiments; 109th Machine Gun Battalion. 
53RD Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. W. G. Price, 1071!^ 



402 APPENDIX 



io8th, and 109th Regiments; 103rd Trench Mortar Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 103d Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 103d Battalion. 
Division Units — 28th Division Headquarters Troop; 107th 

Machine Gun Battalion. 

30TH DIVISION (Wild Cat)— Major Gen. Edward M. Lewis, 
commanding; Lieut. Col. Robert B. McBride, Chief of Staff; 
Lieut. Col. Francis B. Hinkle, Adjutant General. 

59TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Tyson; 
117th and iiSth Regiments; 114th Machine Gun Battalion. 

60TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Samuel L. Faison; 119th 
and I20th Regiments; 115th Machine Gun Battalion. 

55TH Brigade, Field Artillery — (Commanding officer not an- 
nounced) ; 113th, 114th and 115th Regiments; 105th Trench 
Mortar Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 105th Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 165th Battalion. 

Division Units — 30th Division Headquarters Troop; 113th 
Machine Gun Battalion. 

35TH DIVISION— Major Gen. Peter E. Traub, commanding; 

Colonel Robert McCleave, Chief of Staff; Major J. M. Hob- 
son, Adjutant General. 
69TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Nathaniel McClure; 

137th and 138th Regiments; 129th Machine Gun Battalion. 
70TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Charles I. Martin; 139th 

and 140th Regiments; 130th Machine Gun Battalion. 
60TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. L. G. Berry; 

128th, 129th, and 130th Regiments; iioth Trench Mortar 

Battery. 
Engineer Troops — iioth Battalion. 
Division Units — T,^^h Division Headquarters Troop; 128th 

Machine Gun Battalion. 

77TH DIVISION (Upton)— Major Gen. George B. Dun- 
can, commanding; (Chief of Staff not announced); Major 
W. N. Haskell, Adjutant General. 

153D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Edward Wittenmeyer; 
205th and 306th Regiments; 305th Machine Gun Battalion. 

154TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Evan M. Johnson; 307th 
and 308th Regiments; 306th Machine Gun Battalion. 

152D Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Reeves; 
304th, 305th and 306th Regiments; 302d Trench Mortar 
Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 302d Regiment. 



APPENDIX 40-:^ 



Signal Troops — 302d Battalion. 

Division Units — 77th Division Headquarters Troop; 304th 
Machine Gun BattaHon. 

82D DIVISION— Major Gen. W. P. Burnham, commanding; 

Lieut. Col. Royden E. Beebe, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. 

John R. Thomas, Adjutant General. 
163D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Marcus D. Cronin; 325th 

and 326th Regiments; 320th Machine Gun Battalion. 
164TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Julian R. Lindsay; 327th 

and 328th Regiments; 321st Machine Gun Battalion. 
157TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. Charles D. 

Rhodes; 319th, 320th and 321st Regiments; 307th Trench 

Mortar Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 307th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 307th Battalion. 
Division Units — 319th Machine Gun Battalion. 

3D ARMY CORPS 

Major Gen. William M. Wright, commanding. 

3d and 5th Divisions, Regular Army; 27th (New York) and 
33d (Illinois) Divisions, National Guard; 78th (Delaware and 
New York) and 80th (New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Del- 
aware, and District of Columbia) Divisions, National Army. 

3D DIVISION — Major Gen. Joseph T. Dickman, commanding; 

Colonel Robert H. Kelton, Chief of Staff; Captain Frank 

L. Purndon, Adjutant General. 
5th Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. F. W. Sladen; 4th and 

7th Regiments; 8th Machine Gun Battalion. 
8th Brigade, Infantry — (Commanding officer not announced) ; 

30th and 38th Regiments; 9th Machine Gun Battalion. 
3D Brigade, Field Ar-^ llery — Brig. Gen. W. M. Cruikshank; 

loth, 76th and 181'/ F-giments; 3d Trench Mortar Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 6th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 5th Battalion. 
Division Units — 3d Division Headquarters Troop ; 7th Machine 

Gun Battalion. 

5TH DIVISION— Major Gen. John E. McMahon, command- 
ing; Colonel Ralph E. Ingram, Chief of Staff; Major David 
P. Wood, Adjutant General. 

9TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. J. C. Castner; 60th and 
6ist Regiments; 14th Machine Gun Battalion. 



404 APPENDIX 



lOTH Brigade, Infantry — Major Gen. W. H. Gordon; 6th and 
nth Regiments; 15th Machine Gun Battalion. 

5TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. C. A. F. Flagler; 
19th, 2oth, and 21st Regiments; 5th Trench Mortar Bat- 
tery. 

Engineer Troops — 7th Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 9th Battalion. 

Division Units — 5th Division Headquarters Troop; 13th Ma- 
chine Gun Battalion. 

27TH DIVISION (New York)— Major Gen. J. F. O'Ryan, 
commanding; Lieut. Col. Stanley H. Ford, Chief of Staff; 
Lieut. Col. Frank W. Ward, Adjutant General. 

53D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Alfred W. Bjornstad; 
105th and io6th Regiments; 105th Machine Gun Battalion. 

54TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Palmer E. Pierce; 107th 
and io8th Regiments; io6th Machine Gun Battalion. 

52ND Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. George A. Win- 
gate; 104th, 105th and io6th Regiments; I02d Trench Mor- 
tar Battery. 

Engineer Troops — I02d Regiment. 

Signal Troops — i02d Battalion. 

Division Units — 27th Division Headquarters Troop; j[04th 
Machine Gun Battalion. 

33D DIVISION — Major Gen. George Bell, Jr., commanding; 
Colonel William K. Naylot, Chief of Staff; (Adjutant Gen- 
eral not announced). 

65TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Edward L. King; 129th 
and 130th Regiments; 123d Machine Gun Battalion. 

66th Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Paul A. Wolff; 131st and 
132nd Regiments; 124th Machine Gun Battalion. 

58TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. James A. Shipton; 
I22d, 123d and 124th Regiments; io8th Trench Mortar Bat- 
tery. 

Engineer Troops — 108th Battalion. 

Signal Troops — io8th Battalion. 

Division Units — 33d Division Headquarters Troop; 112th 
Machine Gun Battalion. 

78TH DIVISION— Major Gen. James H. McRae, command- 
ing; Lieut. Col. Harry N. Cootes; Chief of Staff; Major 
William T. MacMill, Adjutant General. 

155TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Mark L. Hersey; 309th 
and 310th Regiments; 308th Machine Gun Battalion. 



APPENDIX 40? 



156TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. James T. Dean; 311th 

and 312th Regiments; 309th Machine Gun Battalion. 
153D Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. Clint C. Hearn; 

307th, 308th and 309th Regiments; 303d Trench Mortar 

Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 303d Regiment. 
Signal Troop — 303d Battalion. 
Division Units — 78th Division Headquarters Troop; 307th 

Machine Gun Battalion. 

80TH DIVISION— Major Gen. Adelbert Cronkhite, command- 
ing; Lieut. Col. William H. Waldron, Chief of Staff; Major 
Steven C. Clark, Adjutant General. 

159TH Brigade, Infantry— Brig. Gen. George H. Jamerson, 
317th and 318th Regiments; 314th Machine Gun Battalion. 

160TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Lloyd M. Bratt; 319th 
and 320th Regiments; 315th Machine Gun Battalion. 

155TH Brigade, Field Artillery— Brig. Gen. Gordon G. 
Heiner; 313th, 314th and 315th Regiments; 305th Trench 
Mortar Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 305th Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 305th Battalion. 

Division Units — 8oth Division Headquarters Troop; 313th 
Machine Gun Battalion. 

4TH ARMY CORPS 

Major Gen. George W. Read, commanding. 

83d (Ohio and Pennsylvania), 89th (Kansas, Missouri 
South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, and Ari- 
zona), 90th (Texas and Oklahoma), and 92d (negro troops) 
Divisions, National Army; 37th (Ohio) and 29th (New Jersey, 
Virginia, Delaware, Maryland and District of Columbia) Divi- 
sions, National Guard. 

29TH DIVISION— Major Gen. C. G. Morton, commanding; 
Colonel George S. Goodale, Chief of Staff; Major James 
A. Ulio, Adjutant General. 

57TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Charles W. Barber; 113th 
and 114th Regiments; iiith Machine Gun Battalion. 

58TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. H. H. Bandholtz; 115th 
and ii6th Regiments; 112th Machine Gun Battalion. 

54TH Brigade, Field Artillery — (Commanding officer not an- 
nounced) iioth. Tilth and 112th Regiments; 104th Trench 
Mortar Battery. 



4o6 APPENDIX 



Engineer Troops — 104th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 104th Battalion. 

Division Units — 29th Division Headquarters Troop; iioth 
Machine Gun Battalion. 

37TH DIVISION— Major Gen. C. S. Farnsworth, command- 
ing; Lieut. Col. Dana T. Merrill, Chief of Staff; Major Ed- 
ward W. Wildrick, Adjutant Geiieral. 

73RD Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. C. F. Zimmerman; 145th 
and 146th Regiments; 135th Machine Gun Battalion. 

74TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. W. P. Jackson; 147th and 
148th Regiments; 136th Machine Gun Battalion. 

62D Brigade, Field Artillery — (Commanding officer not an- 
nounced) ; 134th, 135th and 136th Regiments; 112th Trench 
Mortar Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 112th Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 112th Battalion. 

Division Units — 37th Division Headquarters Troop; 134th 
Machine Gun Battalion. 

83RD DIVISION— Major Gen. E. F. Glenn, commanding; 
Lieut. Col. C. A. Trott, Chief of Staff; Major James L. 
Cochran, Adjutant General. 

165TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Ora E. Hunt; 329th 
and 330th Regiments; 323d Machine Gun Battalion. 

i66th Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Malin Craig; 331st and 
332d Regiments; 324th Machine Gun Battalion. 

158TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. Adrian S. Flem- 
ing ; 322d, 323d, and 324th Regiments ; 308th Trench Mortar 
Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 308th Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 308th Battalion. 

Division Units — 83d Division Headquarters Troop; 322d Ma- 
chine Gun Battalion. 

89TH DIVISION— Brig. Gen. Frank L. Winn, commanding; 
(Acting) Colonel C. E, Kilbourne, Chief of Staff; Major 
Jerome G. Pillow, Adjutant General. 

177TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Frank L. Winn; 353rd 
and 354th Regiments; 341st Machine Gun Battalion. 

178TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Thomas G. Hanson; 
355th and 356th Regiments; 342d Machine Gun Battalion. 

164TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. Edward T. Don- 
nelly; 340th, 341st and 342d Regiments; 314th Trench 
Mortar Battery. 



APPENDIX 407 



Engineer Troops — 314th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 314th Battalion. 

Division Units — 89th Division Headquarters Troop; 340th 
Machine Gun Battalion. 

90TH DIVISION— Major Gen. Henry T. Allen, commanding; 

Colonel John J. Kingman, Chief of Staff; Major Wyatt P. 

Selkirk, Adjutant General. 
179TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. John T. O'Neill; 357th 

and 358th Regiments; 344th Machine Gun Battalion. 
180TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. W. H. Johnston; 359th 

and 360th Regiments; 345th Machine Gun Battalion. 
165TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. Francis C. Mar- 
shall; 343d, 344th, and 345th Regiments; 315th Trench 

Mortar Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 315th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 315th Battalion. 
Division Units — 90th Division Headquarters Troop; 349th 

Machine Gun Battalion. 

92ND DIVISION— Major Gen. C. C. Ballou, commanding; 

Lieut. Col. Allen J. reer, Chief of Staff; Major Sherburne 

Whipple, Adjutant General. 
183D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Malvern H. Barnum 365th 

and 366th Regiments; 350th Machine Gun Battalion. 
184TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. W. A. Hay; 367th and 

368th Regiments; 351st Machine Gun Battalion. 
167TH Brigade, Field Artillery — (Commanding officer not 

announced) ; 349th, 350th and 351st Regiments; 317th 

Trench Mortar Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 317th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 317th Battalion. 
Division Units — 92d Division Headquarters Troop; 349th 

Machine Gun Battalion. 



5TH ARMY CORPS 

Major Gen. Omar Bundy, commanding. 

6th Division, Regular Army; 36th (Texas and Oklahoma) 
Division, National Guard; 75th (New England), 79th (Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland and District of Columbia), 85th (Michigan 
and Wisconsin), and 91st (Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Cali- 



4o8 APPENDIX 



fornia, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming and Utah), Divi- 
sions, National Army. 

6TH DIVISION — Brig. Gen. James B. Erwin, commanding; 

Colonel James M. Pickering, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. 

Robert S. Knox, Adjutant General. 
iiTH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. W. R. Dashiell; 51st and 

52d Regiments; 17th Machine Gun Battalion. 
I2TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. J. B. Erwin; 53d and 54th 

Regiments; i8th Machine Gun Battalion. 
6th Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. E. A. Millar; 3rd, 

nth, and 78th Regiments; 6th Trench Mortar Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 318th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 6th Battalion. 
Division Units — 6th Division, Headquarters Troop; i6th 

Machine Gun Battalion. 

36TH DIVISION— Major Gen. W. R. Smith, commanding; 

Colonel E. J. Williams, Chief of Staff; Major William R. 

Scott, Adjutant General. 
7IST Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Henry Hutchings; 141st 

and I42d Regiments; i32d Machine Gun Battalion. 
720 Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. John A. Hulen; 143d and 

144th Regiments; 133d Machine Gun Battalion. 
61ST Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. John A. Stevens; 

131st, I32d and 133d Regiments, iiith Trench Mortar Bat- 
tery. 
Engineer Troops — iiith Regiment. 
Signal Ti^oops — iiith Battalion. 
Division Units — 36th Division Headquarters Troop; 131st 

Machine Gun Battalion. 

76TH DIVISION— Major Gen. Harry F. Hodges, command- 
ing; (Chief of Staff not announced); Major George M. 
Peek, Adjutant General. 

151ST Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Frank M. Albright; 301st 
and 302d Regiments; 302d Machine Gun Battalion. 

152D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. F. D. Evans; 303d and 
304th Regiments; 303d Machine Gun Battalion. 

151ST Brigade, Field Artillery — Major Gen. William S. 
McNair; 301st, 302d, and 303d Regiments; 301st Trench 
Mortar Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 301st Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 301st Battalion. 

Division Units — 76th Division Headquarters Troop; 301st 
Machine Gun Battalion. 



APPENDIX 409 



79TH DIVISION— Major Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn, commanding; 

Colonel Tenny Ross, Chief of Staff; Major Charles B. 

Moore, Adjutant General. 
157TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. William L. Nicholson; 

313th and 314th Regiments; 311th Machine Gun Battalion. 
158TH Brigade, Infantry — (Commanding officer not an- 
nounced) ; 315th and 316th Regiments; 312th Machine Gun 

Battalion. 
154TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. Andrew Hero, 

Jr., 310th, 311th and 312th Regiments; 304th Trench Mortar 

Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 304th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 304th Battalion. 
Division Units — 79th Division Headquarters Troop; 310th 

Machine Gun Battalion. 

85TH DIVISION— Major Gen. C. W. Kennedy, commandmg; 
Colonel Edgar T. Collins, Chief of Saff; Lieut. Col. Clar- 
ence Lininger, Adjutant General. 

169TH Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Thomas B. Dugan; 
337th and 338th Regiments; 329th Machine Gun Battalion. 

170TH Brigade, Infantry — (Commanding officer not an- 
nounced) ; 339th and 340th Regiments; 330th Machine Gun 
Battalion. 

160TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. Guy M. Preston; 
328th, 329th and 330th Regiments; 310th Trench Mortar 
Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 310th Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 310th Battalion. 

Division Units — 85th Division Headquarters Troop; 328th 
Machine Gun Battalion. 

91ST DIVISION— Brig. Gen. F. H. Foltz, commanding; Col- 
onel Herbert J. Brees, Chief of Staff; Major Frederick W. 
Manley, Adjutant General. 

181ST Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. John B. McDonald; 361st 
and 362d Regiments; 347th Machine Gun Battalion. 

182D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Frederick S. Foltz; 363d 
and 364th Regiments; 348th Machine Gun Battalion. 

i66th Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. Edward Burr; 
346th, 347th and 348th Regiments; 316th Trench Mortar 
Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 316th Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 316th Battalion. 

Division Units — 91st Division Headquarters Troop; 346th 
Machine Gun Battalion. 



410 APPENDIX 



UNASSIGNED TO CORPS 

81ST DIVISION— Major Gen. C. J. Bailey, commanding; 

Colonel Charles D. Roberts, Chief of Staff; Major Arthur 

E. Ahrends, Adjutant General. 
161ST Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. George W. Mclver; 321st 

and 322nd Regiments; 317th Machine Gun Battalion. 
162D Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. Monroe McFarland; 

323d and 324th Regiments; 318th Machine Gun Battalion. 
156TH Brigade, Field Artillery — Brig. Gen. Andrew Moses; 

316th, 317th and 318th Regiments; 306th Trench Mortar 

Battery. 
Engineer Troops — 306th Regiment. 
Signal Troops — 306th Battalion. 
Division Units — 8ist Division Headquarters Troop; 316th 

Machine Gun Battalion. 

93RD DIVISION — (Commander not announced) ; Major Lee 
S. Tillotson, Adjutant General. 

185TH Brigade, Infantry — (Commanding officer not an- 
nounced); 369th and 370th Regiments; 333d Machine Gun 
Battalion. 

i86th Brigade, Infantry — Brig. Gen. George H. Harries; 
371st and 372d Regiments; 334th Machine Gun Battalion. 

I 68th Brigade, Field Artillery — (Commanding officer not an- 
nounced) ; 332d, 333d and 334th Regiments; 318th Trench 
Mortar Battery. 

Engineer Troops — 318th Regiment. 

Signal Troops — 318th Battalion. 

Division Units — 332d Machine Gun Battalion. 



HEABQUAETERSTHERD AR!iY CORPS 

A;:iericcin Ei:;-peditionar5' Forces, 

Pxoiico, Jtay i?, 1918. 



T 



_iCi con I'^ts 



c t t -r: ^-^ 



oi tlio 1st and Snd Divisions, twc 
"* tLroUjgliotit France. 



'^id . -i 0* tho Third Corps, yoxi h':",ve boen , ■ 
to be pi .ced beside ths best veterrai Hreiicfi troops, 
ore '.rr-feby. ReiiGnber thr.t in wh't.is non coning 
tie it^ole A. QTicfxn n^.tion. 

R. i. BULLAKD, 

ivlpjor .Gener^-1, 

Comr'.ndiug 3rd Corps, 



J 3 



V 



ANGI^O -AMBRICAN M^H DmB$|r UNITED STATBS 






NEWCOMO CARLTON. 



Received at 16 BROAD STREET, NEW YORK 

HAEF 26 

-XOY- CI^BONS SSLVI/YN mt CO / /'i) 

" - ^ ■— lLA'-|Of"S Of; YOUR 3PtEN^I? V«"^ PERiOr }T IS Wf^'<3t^'Q 
' ' " J3USTIC 888LESRAMS FRO YOUR AUmmJ'.EB PERIOja 

PERSHII^G 



■^ 



^■1 



COMMISSARIAT GfeNfeRAt. 
DES AFFAIRES DE GUERRE 
FRANCO-AMfeRICAlNES 



■^^f/ 



=ari8, iiuguet 8, lS>l8i 



•j-.-apoMa!ijt da UHIOivX t'.vli. 
;io";el da la 3irene, 



Dear Mr. aibbone, 

General Petain ii&s notified, 
me tixEt the French 'War Gross, 
vrith one palos, has been conferred 
Ujpon you. 

I take pleasure In oongratu- 
iating you upon this decoration 
Trhich you have so irell merited by 
;/our courage and your devotion to 

duty, 

"Accept, de&r lir. Gibbons, the 
Eseurance of my profound regard. 



/ 



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